Understanding the quality indicators
From 1 July 2021, residential aged care providers are required to collect and report on 5 quality indicators for each care recipient:
QI Program indicators:
- Pressure injuries – percentage of care recipients with pressure injuries, reported against 6 pressure injury stages
- Physical restraint – percentage of care recipients who were physically restrained
- Unplanned weight loss – percentage of care recipients who experienced
- significant unplanned weight loss (5% or more)
- consecutive unplanned weight loss
- Falls and major injury – percentage of care recipients who experienced
- one or more falls
- one or more falls resulting in major injury
- Medication management – percentage of care recipients who
- were prescribed 9 or more medications
- received antipsychotic medications.
To make sure the data is consistent, providers must report data in the same way according to the requirements of the QI Program.
Read our manual so you understand how to collect and record quality indicator data according to QI Program requirements.
National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program Manual
Other resources that support the QI Program include:
Reporting quality indicator data
Approved providers of government-subsidised residential aged care services must submit quality indicator data.
You must submit data for each residential aged care service, even if you’re part of a larger provider group.
The following services are excluded and do not need to report data:
- Flexible care including transition care
- Short-Term Restorative Care Programme
- Multi-Purpose Services Program
- National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program
- Innovative Care Programme.
Submitting the data
Data recording templates have been developed to support providers to record data from 1 July 2021. These templates automatically calculate and summarise data for each quality indicator for submission through the My Aged Care provider portal.
A commercial benchmarking company can submit quality indicator data on your behalf. You’re responsible for making sure they submit by the deadline as required by law.