The Program

Background information about Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care Program.

In this section:

In the 2006 Budget, funding of $21.6 million over four years was allocated to the Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care (EBPRAC) program.

The key aim of the EBPRAC program is to improve evidence-based clinical care for residents of Australian Government-funded aged care homes.

Five projects have each established a consortium which comprises a number of residential aged care homes, researchers and educators. Around 40 aged care homes across all states are involved in EBPRAC.

Projects are required to demonstrate that they will improve clinical care for residents, provide additional skills for clinical care staff and be transferable to other aged care homes.

The Department of Health and Ageing (the Department) has engaged a national evaluator, the University of Wollongong, to work with the successful consortia to develop performance indicators for monitoring the implementation of the projects and also to ensure systems are in place to collect appropriate data, which will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.