Aged Care Insite Issue 92 | December 2015 - January 2016 | Page 34

technology

High tech for
a higher bar

As more businesses are run by individual operators, it can
become a challenge to keep track of and maintain service levels
across the board. This is an important challenge to meet, so it is
vital that providers recognise the value of technology and how it
can make their organisation more efficient.
Like many businesses, aged care can benefit from untethering
staff from desks and letting them work remotely. This can include
completing paperwork and administrative tasks from home, and
it also includes making staff more productive within the facility
itself. For example, letting staff access patient records while at
the patient’s bedside, then order tests, medication or procedures
without having to go back to a desk, can significantly reduce the
time it takes to complete these tasks. It also contributes to a better
standard of care, since carers can spend more time with patients.
Mobile technology, integrated with operational systems,
provides a way to connect disparate systems, improving service
delivery, caregivers’ utilisation, and care recipients’ satisfaction.
Many aged-care organisations are facing growing imperatives to
contain costs, maintain margins and comply with regulations, as
well as improve patient relationships, satisfaction and care. Letting
employees be mobile helps them focus on providing the best
possible care and services to their clients, regardless of financial
pressures.
Facility operators can use technology to overcome three key
client-related challenges:

1
There are heavy demands on
organisations with limited resources;
the right systems can provide the
efficiency to meet the challenge.
By Steve Liliopoulos

A

ustralia’s aged-care industry’s number one challenge is
the country’s rapidly ageing population, the Community
Services and Health Industry Skills Council (CS&HISC)
says. Not only is this trend already forcing the government to
rethink its aged-care welfare system, it also means unprecedented
hurdles for aged-care facility operators.
Over the next 40 years, the proportion of the population aged
65 years and over will almost double, to about 25 per cent of
Australia’s total population, according to the government’s 2015
Intergenerational Report. As the aged population grows, many
facility operators are under increased pressure to manage multiple
facilities and retirement villages, as well as provide community
support services to older people in their homes.
This increased pressure is also being driven by another major
concern the CS&HISC has identified: the government’s push for
client-led models of care to become the norm. The introduction of
the Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) highlighted this, as did the
initiatives around Consumer Directed Care (CDC) packages and the
Living Longer, Living Better reforms.
These new responsibilities mean it is no longer business as
usual for most organisations in the industry. Instead, aged-care
providers need to look at new ways of operating, improving overall
productivity, consistency across businesses and company-wide
efficiency – without sacrificing quality of care.

34 agedcareinsite.com.au

Increased client demands for improved service and
co-ordinated care
Providers can deliver outstanding, co-ordinated care only when
they have a full view of the patient and their history, regardless of
whether the patient is a resident or an out-patient. Providers can
achieve this via a customer relationship management system with
workflows designed specifically for aged care.
For example, systems that include caller ID automatically puts
patients’ records on-screen for the phone operator. This lets the
operator understand who they are speaking with straightaway,
streamlining response time. Next steps can be facilitated, based on
the call and on that particular patient’s history and known medical
conditions.

2

A focus on prevention to reduce costs
To maintain wellness and prevent illness or injury, caregivers
need a single source of the truth: a clear overarching timeline of
visits, symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments from every healthcare
provider. By having all of this informati ۈ]