Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care Program: Final Evaluation Report
10.3 - Summary
- Key Messages
- Executive Summary
- About This Report
1 - Introduction- 2 - Evidence, Changes in Practice and the EBPRAC Program
- 3 - Program Delivery/Implementation
- 4 - Program Impact
- 5 - Capacity Building
- 6 - Generalisability
- 7 - Sustainability
- 8 - Dissemination
- 9 - Appropriateness
10 - Cost Implications for Government and Aged Care Providers- 11 - Perceptions of High-Level Stakeholders
- 12 - Discussion and Conclusions
- 13 - Recommendations
- References
- Appendices 1 to 6
- Appendices 7 to 12
- Appendices 13 to 17
The EBPRAC program represents a significant investment of government funds, a total of almost $13 million across the 13 projects. An average of $59,000 was spent on implementation costs for each facility. There was considerable variability in the quantum of resources devoted to the four project phases – governance, establishment, implementation and evaluation. An average of 18% of the total budget allocated to projects was spent on evaluation. In return, a large number of people received training in various aspects of evidence-based practice, at a project salary cost ranging from about $100 to $300 per person trained. The full cost of training is higher, including as it does salary costs for the person attending the training and other miscellaneous costs.
All projects offered facilities a financial incentive for participating in EBPRAC, with payments that ranged from $460 to over $60,000 per facility, averaging approximately $12,500 per facility. Only five facilities did not receive any payment. It is difficult to judge the extent to which differences in payments to facilities were associated with differences in project outcomes.
Facilities incurred some costs for which they were not reimbursed. Based on the data provided by projects the additional time spent by facility staff participating in each project does not appear to have been excessive, although this is easy to under-estimate, if it can be estimated at all.
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