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IT Innovation in Aged Care video

Full video and links to snapshots of the video and transcripts.

Accompanying the IT for Aged Care Providers: A Step by step Guide is a video entitled IT Innovation in Aged Care that aims to encourage IT usage in the aged care industry by showcasing IT implementation and case studies from a variety of aged care providers across the nation.

You may download this video in WMV and MPEG formats:

WMV video version of IT Innovation in Aged Care video (WMV 24104 KB)
MPEG video version of IT Innovation in Aged Care video (MPEG 56251 KB)

If you are unable to download this video please send an email to: agedcare.econnect@health.gov.au for a copy to be sent to you.

You may also download snapshots of the video including video files and transcript:

• Hall and Prior Aged Care - Clinical IT
• Montefiore Homes - Clinical IT
• Hammond Care - eBusiness
• Baptist Community Services - eBusiness
• Baptist Community Services - Clinical IT
• TLC Aged Care - eBusiness
• Towradgi Park Village - eBusiness

The transcript from the full video is also listed below:

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Collaboration and Innovation

IT in Aged Care

Female:

IT will never replace the human touch when interfacing with a resident, and I think that we must keep that at the forefront of our thinking. Our people will be the ones that have the best interface with residents at every step of the way.

Male:

Well at the end of the day, what's really important to us? It's the quality of care for the people we care for.

Male 2:

Because after all we're trying to maximise the time we spend in looking after our clients and minimise the amount of administrative overhead we have as organisations. And whether you're the very largest or the very smallest the benefits…it's still there.

Recorded Female:

Today, Australians live longer than people in most other countries. This, combined with a lower fertility rate, means we have a growing older population, and a shrinking workforce. In this climate, finding more efficient ways of caring for our older generation while maintaining the highest quality of care is becoming increasingly important. This is the story of our innovative technology in residential aged care, supports staff, and in turn benefits residents. It is the story of an integrated approach to best care.

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The Need for Change

Female 2:

I'm told we can do eBusiness with the Department. What that meant was we had to print out the form from our system, and then transpose it onto the Department's form and it was very easy to make a mistake, and we did make mistakes.

Male 3:

There were huge filing issues, huge production of documentation for a various accreditation and other purposes of justification for what we were doing.

Male 4:

The focus for eBusiness was really about streamlining and improving the efficiency of the administration with the promise of freeing up staff hours to actually put back into delivery of care to residents.

Recorded Female:

Inefficient use of time in residential aged care impacts heavily on the ability of staff to meet the care requirements of their residents. Almost all Australians over 65 have at least one chronic health condition. In aged care, residents need a range of help from self-care and mobility to medication administration and management of chronic diseases. The more time staff spend on administration, the less time they have to care for residents. The Australian Government is assisting the industry to create an environment where the use of IT improves efficiency, quality of services and care delivered to older Australians. eBusiness services are available to streamline administration. And Clinical IT is being used by industry to improve the quality and efficiency of care.

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Getting Set Up

Female 3:

In preparing ourselves for eBusiness we did a lot of data cleansing so we made sure that all the data that we had was correct before setting the system up and going live with it.

Female 4:

For us it was important that the staff were able to use it, that it was simple, that it was accessible, and that it was practical for them.

Male 5:

eBusiness was an inspiration for us, as a growing organisation we wanted to have consistency in our policies and our management information, and we spent a lot of time analysing how we would set up our IT platform.

Female 5:

The whole change management process with them, you're thinking about communication, training, support, it's absolutely critical. It's that which will determine the success of the project, rather than how good the particular application is.

Recorded Female:

A large proportion of the aged care sector, is currently using IT in some form. The industry is already investing in IT platforms for future technology, so it can continue to provide better care to residents, and better working conditions for staff.

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eBusiness: Streamlining Administration

Recorded Female:

Hammond Care Group runs a number of aged care facilities throughout New South Wales. Greater efficiency, thanks to its IT infrastructure, and the implementation of e-business, means that staff can spend less time on paperwork, and more time caring for residents.

Female 6:

Seven years ago, I probably spent at least half the day on paperwork. Now, you're only talking probably 10 minutes at the end of the day to confirm the data and send it off.

Recorded Female:

TLC Homes is using eBusiness to admit and discharge residents and connect directly to the Government. More accurate and efficient than their old system, staff now have more time to care for residents.

Female 7:

It's a much faster and more efficient use of everybody's time.

Female 8:

With the decreased time that I spent, I'm sending off documentation, I'm able to be involved in any clinical decisions, support the staff, meet with residents and families.

Recorded Female:

Baptist Community Services is using eBusiness to streamline administration and reduce paperwork, so that staff have more time to spend with residents.

Female 9:

In our system, the claim form is just automatically sent to the Department and we don't have to print it out, check it, you know, it's all done once, and then sent off.

Male 6:

I think regardless of the size of organisation, there are benefits to be had from implementing programs such as eBusiness, in streamlining administrative processes, in reducing the effort it requires to process forms.

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Clinical IT: Improve Quality of Care

Recorded Female:

Hall and Prior in Western Australia, has implemented a new software system to manage the treatment of pressure ulcers which can be life threatening to the elderly.

Male 7:

The technology is um, it's very simple. It utilises an inexpensive digital camera, and it allows you to take a picture of the wound, and to very precisely measure it and to record all its clinical details, and to record the treatment that you're applying to that wound, and to track it over time, and to measure its healing rate as a function of that treatment.

Male 8:

During the study we had a reduction of pressure ulcers of about 42% over an eight month period. That's quite startling.

Recorded Female:

Montefiore Homes in New South Wales replaced its paper-based medication rounds with a portable care system. From residents' rooms, this trolley uploads clinical information which remote staff and general practitioners can monitor and assess.

Male 9:

We've effectively converted a standard trolley into a very sophisticated clinical monitoring system. They can both do medications management, and as well can be taken into a patient's room, and can help the nurse take the blood pressure measurement, an ECG measurement, a spirometry a lung function measurement, measure his weight, calculate and derive his pulsic symmetry, measure his body temperature, and it then becomes available immediately to the care team. When they enter that patient's file, they can see all the clinical signs, everything about the patient's vital signs is recorded there.

Male 10:

We can look to see if the medications we've prescribed are having the effects we'd like them to have. We can monitor that from afar.

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Recorded Female:

Using a computerised prescription system, Towradgi Park Village is saving time by increasing its efficiency. Incorrect, ineligible or incomplete medication charts are a thing of the past.

Female 10:

We were particularly, ah, I guess enthusiastic to participate because our staff had told us over a number of years how difficult it was often to have doctors update medication charts in particular, and often we had the difficulty of the notes or the medication prescriptions and charts not being legible.

Female 11:

Before the program was introduced, the doctors would come onsite, write up the medication charts, then go back to their surgery, usually write the scripts up there, send them off to the pharmacy. With the new system, with Medication Profile, because it's done on site and the system was inbuilt that all the data had to be put in before the chart could be printed out, such as the dose, the frequency, the route that the medication was to be given, whether the resident's on allergies, and from here it would be sent to the pharmacy and the medication could be back onsite within the hour.

Recorded Female:

Using Broadband and telecommunications technology, Baptist Community Services, is facilitating offsite care. From people's homes, the system schedules treatment, monitors house security, and allows for constant contact with carers.

Female 12:

People when they come out of the acute care sector, they can take the unit with them and hopefully it will prevent future emergency admissions.

Recorded Female:

The reported benefits of streamlined administration and clinical care improvements through the use of IT are clear and widespread. Reduced errors and double handling, more accurate up to date and consistent information, and improved access to and sharing of that information, means that services can be delivered more efficiently and better care outcomes for residents achieved.
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The Big Picture

Female 13:

To release our people, to be able to deliver that one-on-one care, that face-to-face care that, you know that compassionate care that we expect to the residents, then we need to release them from the paper warfare that happens behind the scenes.

Male 11:

Our motto is 'Great Care and Great Careers' and we think technology is a critical part in both. And we want all our staff to feel comfortable with technology and for that to produce great care.

Male 12:

There's a lot of help available, there are a lot of aged care providers who have already taken the leap and are doing it. So it is achievable.

Male 13:

The residents were very supportive. The understood immediately what benefits this would have in terms of their own health management, and residents are really very conscious about their health, they do want to live as well as they can, and so they will support anything that gives them an improved quality of life.

Male 14:

Reducing administrative roles means that our carers are feeling like they're doing a better job. Their job satisfaction is higher and we know that that also has an impact with our clients.

Female: 14:

Staff shortages we're facing with the need to be as efficient as possible. I think that technology over time will help us to be more efficient, will help us to have the information we need to deliver high quality care and will enable us to continue to grow.

Male 15:

We have a relationship with our communities to provide care for our residents. It's a single fixated mission. And this technology has helped us to achieve better outcomes for our residents. It's as straightforward as that.

[End of recording]
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