[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Data and digital for aged care providers’, ‘Webinar’, ‘1 August 2024’, ‘agedcareengagement.health.gov.au’, ‘1 August 2024’]
[The visuals during this webinar are of each speaker presenting in turn via video, with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thank you all for attending today’s webinar. I’m Sharna Eastaughffe from the Department of Health and Aged Care.
I’ll begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we are virtually meeting today. I’m based in Canberra, the lands of the Ngunnawal people. I acknowledge and pay respect to their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region. I also extend that acknowledgment and respect to other families with a connection to this region and any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are here with us today.
There will be a Q&A session at the end of this webinar. You can submit questions in Q&A on the right hand side of your screen and we will attempt to respond to as many questions as possible. All questions and answers including the ones that we may not get to today will be published in a FAQs document on our website. We sometimes receive questions that are unclear or not directly relevant to the webinar. If we are unable to answer a question during the session we will follow up with the relevant area in the Department and respond through the FAQs document. Questions submitted during the registration process have also been considered for the Q&A session. There is no option for attendees to turn on their video or microphone. The webinar slides are now available on our website and this session is being recorded and will be published on our website in the coming days.
Today firstly we’ll be hearing from Josh Maldon, Assistant Secretary, Digital Strategy and Assurance Branch, Department of Health and Aged Care, who will be providing an overview of the Aged Care Data and Digital Strategy and some of the actions planned for providers under this Strategy. We will then be handing over to Janine Bennett, Assistant Secretary, Digital Transformation and Delivery Division, who will be providing an overview of our digital transformation program of work. And finally we’ll be hearing from Liberty Cramer from Independent Living Australia who will be giving an update on the Keep Able TM tool.
We’ll then conclude today’s webinar with a Q&A session with the full panel.
Josh Maldon:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Actions planned for providers in the Aged Care Data and Digital Strategy 2024-2029’, ‘Josh Maldon’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Digital Strategy and Assurance Branch’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘agedcareengagement.health.gov.au’]
Just trying to get myself off mute there. Thank you so much Sharna and welcome Liberty and thanks Janine Bennett as well for being here. And look I’m hoping the bandwidth holds out there. I can hear the sound falling through a little bit so apologies there. We’ll get the technical teams looking at that straight away.
So again want to give you guys a really big thanks because I know a number of you have also been intimately involved in working with us over the last couple of years with the Strategy so thanks for being a part of that journey.
So just in terms of moving forward what I thought is we should provide a little bit of an explanation around the terms data and digital. So if we jump through to the next slide and just have a look at that. We’ve got this cool picture. You can see the exposed pipes there on the ceiling and those pipes, they had to be planned, we had to work out what their sizes were, how they interacted with each other, where they were placed to interact with each other and so forth. And so that kind of is what we mean by digital. It’s the how, the how users and providers of information interact with technology and processes. Technology meaning electronic systems that generate, store and process data. And so we can think of the data as the water that’s travelling through those pipes and the information being entered into the systems which is used to provide services and for reporting purposes and make those transactions. And the data’s expressed as a string of zeros and ones which is where you get the term binary.
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Brief overview of the Aged Care Data and Digital Strategy 2024-2029’]
So if we jump through to the next slide. So we’ve done a lot of work as I said over the last two years and worked intimately with a lot of you and we’re really excited that the Minister, the Honourable Anika Wells has launched the Strategy. So that was launched on the 4th of July, earlier last month. So in terms of context setting I just thought it was important to go back to what the genesis of the Strategy was. It is something that went back to the Royal Commission. So following that process it did have a number of findings in relation to aged care data and digital technologies and the negative impact that that could have on the provision of good quality aged care. And so things like information being too complex, difficult to find, digital knowledge of both older people in the workforce being variable, some providers still using paper-based systems and data we’re collecting being incomplete or out of date, interoperability or systems not connecting or talking to each other, and the need for data standards so we could actually support and encourage investment in the development of software and the reuse of data.
And I guess that’s against a backdrop too with the intergenerational report which is forecasting that in less than 40 years we’re going to more than double the people we have now over 65 and more than triple of the people that we have over 85. And so it’s an issue that we’ve got to look to tackle with every lever that we’ve got.
So in terms of consultation we did a whole range of consultation, so focus groups, public forums, webinars, multiple presentations. I think in the end we had over 600 individuals participate and what we heard from those people is the workforce challenges. How can we find solutions that free up time and resources to improve quality of care? How can we invest in an uplift in data and digital maturity because it’s commensurate with an uplift in the quality of care but also continuity of care across the care sectors. And also the inefficiencies and gaps that we have in service provision and day to day operation because we don’t have that system interoperability to gain a lot of support for standards as a precursor there. We also heard that data and digital improvements should make care easier with automation and streamlining of non-care tasks to generate some of those efficiencies. We also heard that rural and remote providers need tailored support to enable them to fully benefit from improvements in both data and digital technologies. And so through this Strategy we’re looking to take on a number of those issues head on.
So where did we end up with the Strategy post-consultation? So you can see here we’ve got the Strategy here and the vision that’s set by the Minister herself which is about delivering that highest quality person-centred care for older people which is while driving that sustainable and productive care and support economy through data and digital innovation. And you can see there it’s got six guiding principles. We heard these really loudly and clearly not just during development but consultation, and the two ones that we heard really loudly from people themselves was around the person-centred and also the need to cater for diversity. Also the tell us once principle as people look for continuity and a continuous journey across services. Need to be integrated, care focused and trusted.
You can see there how it broadens out to four outcomes and that it’s got two strategic priorities under each outcome. So outcome one being all about older people, their family and carers. Outcome two being on workforce, aged care providers. And outcome three and four it’s all the background work with the data and digital foundations focusing on technology developers and the Government organisations working together hopefully seamlessly behind the scenes.
So the exciting piece. How are we delivering against the Strategy? So you can see that the Strategy that we’ve released is time-based and it’s got a roadmap of concrete actions that we’re going to be delivering against. And the intention is to refresh that annually so we can capture new data and digital improvements and remain responsive to the evolving needs of the sector. And this is something where I want to be engaging with you and hearing from you now that we have released the Strategy, we’ve got the first year, is what are the next initiatives that you would like to see follow so that we can start to have those conversations with Government.
So the first year of the action plan we’ve aligned the four strategic outcomes and guiding principles with those proposed action areas and you’ve got those timeframes. So it’s got short term, the next couple of years, medium term, stretching out to three, and long term which is five years and plus beyond the life of the Strategy itself.
So in terms of the benefits for aged care providers one of the key investments that has been made by Government through Budget has been a really significant investment in the ICT systems that aged care providers and workforce engage with in Government to jointly administer the delivery of aged care services, to receive referrals once the reporting and regulation that you’re subject to as well as the payment systems. The benefits for providers in this context is that we are looking to streamline those interactions that you have and that’s largely through the Government Provider Management System or GPMS. And we’re looking at opportunities there to reduce the administrative burden. So firstly through B2G where we can potentially through automated data capture reduce the need for multiple reporting in the systems and the creation of efficiencies, and also we want to reduce administrative burden where we can by sharing that information across the health and aged care sector through modern interoperable systems. It will also be enabling a streamlined registration system, again enabling more proportionate risk-based regulation as well as worker screening and registration to streamline and centralise those workforce assurance processes. And again through support at home implementing those particular arrangements.
So what’s next? If we flick through to the next slide you can see the action plan on a page and you can see that it’s got that two year initial funding commitment to digital reform. Again doesn’t stop there. This is the start of the conversations that we want to continue to have with you as we move through the future. So you’ll recognise those four outcomes there that we discussed earlier, and again for each outcome the two main priorities. That gives us the roadmap but also a way to measure our Strategy and its effectiveness. So the action plan tells us about the specific actions under each priority and you can see the current status if you like of that specific action.
So I wanted to look at some of these provider facing actions. If we jump through to the next slide. One of the things that you’ll no doubt have heard about is the virtual nursing in aged care project. The purpose of that project is to support the development and testing of a framework for the delivery of safe and high quality virtual nursing support in aged care. Why are we doing it? We want to build the evidence on how we can use virtual aged care services to enhance the provision of high quality care. It’s not about replacing face to face but it’s building on it to make sure that we can get that expertise where we need it in homes noting the workforce challenges that we are dealing with.
So what we’re going to do as part of this is engage with stakeholders on the development of the framework, its implementation. We’ll select virtual care service suppliers and residential aged care homes who are experiencing workforce challenges. And it’s about independently evaluating clinical nursing and first outcomes, workforce and service sustainability. And so that’s an initiative that the Department of Health and Aged Care is leading. They’ll be collaborating with the nation’s peak bodies, digital health advisors, other Government agencies and importantly the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
So another one that the Department of Health and Aged Care has policy responsibility for is e‑prescribing. And so the intent behind it is using electronic prescription services will enhance clinical safety and medication practices and reduce administrative burden particularly for aged care workers. So what we’re doing is working to deliver a stable, sustainable prescription delivery service to support that uptake of electronic prescribing across aged care. So that’s something the Department of Health and Aged Care will be working really closely with the Australian Digital Health Agency, state and territory Governments, technology vendors, Department of Veterans Affairs, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare as well as professional and peak bodies. And this is an initiative that you may have heard one of my colleagues Sam Peascod who works elsewhere in the Department of Health and Aged Care talk about.
So if we jump through to worker digital literacy. So this is something as I said really loudly and clearly that it’s something that we need to consider about what support we can scaffold around people to support the uptake of technology. And so one of the things that we’ve been working on here is what do we do around standard capability frameworks, guidelines, resources and tools. Why are we doing that? Again it’s to build that digital capability and make sure that we’re able to meet all the people’s needs and embrace the increasingly digitally enabled future that we’ve got.
So something the Australian Digital Health Agency is working on in this context is piloting and evaluating the National Digital Health Capability Framework and also the self-assessment tool in residential aged care, also looking at how they can promote standardised digital health capabilities and developing an online hub for workers and employers to access digital health information and resources. So as part of that you’ve got ADHA and the Department working together, working with the Australian Institute of Digital Health, working with the Medical Software Industry Association as well as primary health networks in that space.
So the next one that we’re working with Independent Living Australia on – this is really exciting and we’re glad that we’ve got Liberty here to talk about some of the initiatives later in detail – is the wellness and reablement support tool Keep Able. It’s an existing digital channel that Independent Living Australia have at the moment and we’re looking at working with them to strengthen it. And the purpose of that is to empower aged care workers, service providers, health professionals to access high quality information to support people to age well. And again it’s about getting the resources and the training to make sure that in providing care and services we are encouraging that. But that element of independence and again healthy ageing. So it’s about developing an evidence-based tool that we can use in rehabilitation, respite, reablement, restorative care, and it uses that behavioural science framework to identify the optimal digital as well as non-digital delivery mechanisms. And so again working with key people to develop the content and keep working collaboratively with stakeholders. And as part of that independent living assessment we’ll be working with the Department research organisations, service providers as well as peak bodies.
So Integrated Assessment Tool. I feel like you guys are all over this one but it’s still pretty recent so we will mention it. So the Integrated Assessment Tool application. So that will enable the assessment workforce to collect more complete information and have the flexibility to record the individual story of each older person as well as their carer. And again this really aligns with that principle in the Strategy, the tell us once principle. And so it’s now being launched obviously and it replaces the National Aged Care Screening and Assessment Form. So we’ve got that digital capability which has been deployed. It’s supported with assessor training and user guides. There’s an updated assessment manual. And that’s something we’ll continue to review and evaluate to look at the possibility of future enhancements as we progress. So that’s something the Department of Health and Aged Care led working really closely with aged care assessors, management and organisations as well as the Lean education network.
So another initiative – this one I’m super excited about – is the My Aged Care to My Health Record. I feel like this one’s been about a decade in the making and we’re finally getting really close to delivering this which is fabulous. And so this is where with an older person’s consent in place of course we’re looking at passing through aged care support plans across from My Aged Care into My Health Record. And that’s about sharing information in line with that tell us once, making sure people have comprehensive information so they can make quicker and better informed decisions regarding the treatment of older people. So why we’re doing that is carers and clinicians working in healthcare can’t always easily access aged care information and similarly clinicians in aged care can struggle to access information in healthcare and that lack of information sharing means older people are repeating their stories, there’s inefficiencies, and just the opportunities for things to be missed. So it results in poorer health and wellbeing outcomes.
So as I said the first use case that we’ve got and expect to be launching later in October is about making aged care support plans available in My Health Record by authorised users. We’ll be updating the My Aged Care website to provide information to consumers about linking to My Health Record and supporting My Health Record registration connection and use in aged care. So that’s an initiative being led by the Department of Health and Aged Care working really closely with the Australian Digital Health Agency as well as Services Australia.
So we’ll then jump through to the aged care transfer summary. Again it’s a digital solution which uses My Health Record, provides crucial information about a person living in residential aged care and it’s about supporting that transition from an aged care setting to acute hospital care when needed. And why are we doing that? For the same reasons I just described as before. So there’s a lot of work happening in the space where the Australian Digital Health Agency and the Department as well has been partnering with aged care software vendors to uplift clinical information standards as well as EMS products to become conformant with My Health Record and enable that functionality. So again working really closely with the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, Medical Software Industry Association as well as primary health networks.
So we’re super excited with where we’ve gotten to at the moment but it’s still just a first step. So this is something where I want you guys to continue to discuss, raise and bring forward your ideas and suggestions for the next phase of that action plan. I want to hear about how we can better support provider digital maturity, opportunities to integrate artificial intelligence, other emergency technologies, where you’re seeing best practices in particular spots and how we can service that and promote it with other aged care providers.
So thanks everyone. Look forward to the questions at the end.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thanks Josh. That’s a really great presentation. I will now hand over to Janine Bennett who is going to take us through the digital transformation in aged care.
Janine Bennett:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Aged care digital transformation’, ‘Janine Bennett’, ‘A/g Assistant Secretary’, ‘Digital Transformation and Delivery Division’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘agedcareengagement.health.gov.au’]
Great. Thanks Sharna. Appreciate the intro. Hi everybody. My name is Janine Bennett and I’m an Acting Assistant Secretary in the Digital Transformation and Delivery Division at the Department of Health. I’m the Engagement Lead for our digital transformation program of work. We are a technology focused space so we work very closely with our business colleagues, many of whom are on today’s webinar including Josh. But our role is really about building the technology to enable aged care reform measures, effectively building those digital enablers that will help to improve the experience of care providers and older people in Australia as they move through their aged care journey.
So I wanted to give you a really quick overview of what we do and I’ll try and not take up too much of your time today. But effectively for the last three years we’ve been working to create a modern, easy to navigate, connected aged care system. We’re working with not just for aged care providers and IT vendors so that we can collectively drive better outcomes for older people in Australia. Our mandate is driven by the goals of the broader aged care reform and Josh gave us a really great foundational overview of those drivers for reform and the case for change. But in our role despite being IT focused this means creating really meaningful solutions that will help to address those real world outcomes. So we’re very conscious of not just building tech for tech’s sake but making sure that we’re actually using technology to empower individuals, to make sure that older people and their families have the information that they need to make informed decisions about their care. We also want digital improvements that are focused on improving quality, safety, access and choice, all of those great things that came out of the aged care reform recommendations.
To give you a quick sense of the scope of the digital work that we’re undertaking this is a quick snapshot of the reform activity that we were driving between July and December last year. So you can see that there’s a large volume of change introduced over that time and this calls out the aged care reform activity and the ones that are highlighted there, all of those activities that are underpinned by digital solutions. So when you look at this slide it becomes really clear really quickly that digital enablers are really fundamental to achieving our aged care vision which doesn’t really surprise anyone. There’s not a lot we can do these days without having a digital interaction of some kind. So like every other aspect of our lives digital solutions are really underpinning a lot of the aged care reforms. Building those digital capabilities is where the division I work in comes in. We are effectively the digital shop for aged care reform. We are closely aligned to and frankly pretty excited to see the work that’s coming out around the Data and Digital Strategy as well as the action plan that Josh just took you through. Because we I think of all people know what an important role tech can play in driving improvement across the aged care sector and we can see huge potential for these emerging technologies to really move the dial on aged care reform.
In my space we have a vision for what the aged care digital transformation will deliver. And the fundamentals of that are pretty simple. We’re looking for a modern, easy to navigate, connected and automated aged care ecosystem. So not just delivering new software and infrastructure but really creating better experiences for the people that need to interact with these systems. We’re focused as I said on policy priorities for aged care but we also are very focused on putting humans at the centre of our design and interactions making sure that as we develop these solutions we’re thinking about our elderly citizens, we’re thinking about their supporters, we’re also thinking about the Government staff responsible for overseeing services, the IT vendors that support providers to deliver care across our communities. We want to fundamentally improve the experience for older Australians and to do that we have to uplift the maturity of the entire ecosystem.
So to reach our north star we’re focused on removing manual burden. Josh talked about that as well. Relieving those time consuming, error-prone, manual processes and reducing human effort wherever possible. We’re using smart tools to our advantage. We want integrated systems where customers, providers and Government across agencies can work together in a different and better way. And we’re really trying to shape up those user friendly guided experiences that are intuitive and simplified and wherever possible automated using those workflows in the background that take some of the pressure off the people having to use the systems.
And we’re doing that alongside you the sector. In our space we work really closely with providers and with ICT vendors and I know across the broader aged care reform program they’re working really closely with citizens and other people within the system.
Okay. So what does it look like on a practical level, that vision that we have for a modern and connected ecosystem? So Josh covered some of these earlier but we’re looking at digital solutions like the Government Provider Management System and the Business to Government Gateway. So these are foundational solutions for Australia’s new aged care digital ecosystem. They bring a new capability for providers to share information with Government while really focusing on minimising the overhead. The technology that we’re using in this space is modern, cloud-based and scalable technology. For us this is about driving a single source of truth, a tell us once approach, letting Government and providers know exactly what they need and making sure that that information is in the one place. It needs to be a scalable and extensible solution. So what we know is that the reform measures will continue to evolve and be delivered over the coming years so we’ve built a foundational capability that really allows us to add new capabilities and functionality as we mature and progress that will support measures as we move forward across the aged care reform agenda.
As Josh mentioned we’ve already got a bunch of reform measures in the GPMS like star ratings, Quarterly Financial Reporting, dollars to care. The list goes on. There’s a whole bunch of stuff in there already. All of these things are enabled and made possible by the GPMS platform.
And then Business to Government. So this works hand in glove with GPMS. B2G makes it easier for aged care providers to exchange information with Government systems. So it’s replacing that high touch reporting and regulatory tasks with automated system to system connections. Providers can go through a compliance process to ensure that we’ve got the right privacy and security things in place and then it will allow us to automatically share that information through what we call application program interfaces or APIs. For anyone who’s technically savvy amongst us you’ve probably heard of those before. That really removes the manual labour component from reporting. It means that providers can collate that data in their own system, press an authorisation button and then share that information with Government. So reducing human error and duplication of effort as well.
This is really about providing simple, secure ways to connect, so driving interoperability across our ecosystem. And these foundational solutions are helping to make generational change possible in the aged care sector. There are obviously lots of other solutions that are developed and in progress as well and these collectively form our emerging digital ecosystem for aged care.
I wanted to give you a quick look at the 24-25 Budget. So in that Budget we were allocated $1.4 billion in funding to continue the digital transformation journey. That makes up about $600 million that is to sustain critical aged care digital systems like GPMS and B2G as well as others and to ensure they remain legislatively compliant, contemporary, in good working order. The remaining $800 million is for the ICT infrastructure upgrades required to implement upcoming reforms. So that includes things like the new Aged Care Act, the new Support at Home Program and single assessment system. The package is focused on driving significant benefits for aged care providers, as I said providing mechanisms for streamlined interactions with Government, information sharing across health and care sectors, reducing that administrative burden and creating workforce efficiencies as well as much more, ultimately all of which translates into benefits for older people who are engaging with the aged care system.
Before I finish up I wanted to quickly hit on my area of responsibility in the digital transformation program and I would say my area of passion, and that is sector engagement. So from the outset every element of our digital transformation journey has involved engagement. We try and do this as early as possible in the journey. We bake it into the workflow of how we design and develop and deliver ICT solutions. For those that are keen to know more about our digital solutions we encourage you to engage with our collaboration channels that focus distinctly on the digital conversation. We offer a Tech Talk which is a public webinar series where we invite anyone who’s interested to come and hear about what’s happening in the digital transformation journey. And during those webinars we also facilitate discussion about the collective challenges we’re facing across the sector and the opportunities that we can leverage together.
We also run a guest speaker series. Basically that’s what I’m doing here now. I was invited to come along and talk to you about the digital transformation. This is really about putting ourselves in the places where people are at, going to their public webinars and industry events to share our journey and to make sure that you’re getting current and timely information about the digital transformation reforms. And then we have another group which we call the sector partner group. This is a much more intimate, codesign group. So we run regular sessions with our sector partners. They meet with us each fortnight and we sprint together to codesign and co-deploy digital solutions. So I would encourage you if any of that sounds interesting or if you have a burning passion to know more about the tech that’s enabling aged care reform you can use the QR codes on screen. And you are very welcome to come along to any of our engagement events.
And that was it from me. That’s the digital transformation in five minutes or less. I’ll hand back to you thanks Sharna.
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘In closing’, ‘Visit the Digital Transformation page on the Health and Aged Care website or email us at DTDDEngagementOffice@health.gov.au’]
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thanks Janine. I’ll now hand over to Liberty Cramer from Independent Living Australia who will be talking about the expansion of the Keep Able tool. Thanks.
Liberty Cramer:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Expansion of the Keep AbleTM tool’, ‘Liberty Cramer’, ‘Program Manager’, ‘Keep AbleTM’, ‘Independent Living Australia (iLA)’, ‘agedcareengagement.health.gov.au’]
Thanks Sharna. And I want to thank Josh and Janine as well. I really appreciate that you’ve given us the space to get to introduce Keep Able to all of you and I hope you’re as excited about it as I am. So I’ll just start off by introducing myself. My name is Liberty Cramer. My pronouns are she/her and I’m the Program Manager for Keep Able at iLA, Independent Living Assessment.
Over on the next slide we’ve got an acknowledgment of country. I know this is something that we did at the start of the webinar as well but I’m calling in from the other side of the country and I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands, skies and waters throughout Australia and to pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. And specifically I wanted to acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation. They’re the traditional custodians of the lands that our head office is located in and where I’m calling from today in Boorloo in Noongar Boodja, Perth, Western Australia.
So Josh has mentioned a little bit earlier on that over the next year the Keep Able tool will be getting significantly strengthened in a number of different ways. So what I’ll do today is I’ll start off by running through what the Keep Able tool looks like at the moment, how it can help you in your practice at the moment and then I’ll run through where we’re growing the tool and where we can get you involved.
So Keep Able which is powered by iLA was created in 2021 in recognition of the requirements for really embedding wellness and reablement into service delivery and to help build the capacity for healthy ageing and independence across the sector. So we’re a national tool. Our website is available across the country. All of our resources available nationally as are the workshops that we deliver online. And we’re evidence based. So everything that we produce is really backed in by allied health professionals who prepare that content and give us that clinical advice. We really want Keep Able to be as helpful as possible. So we seek input from providers, we develop our resources in collaboration, and each time we meet with a provider we sit down with them to explore what the barriers are that they’re facing, what additional supports are needed and how we can help provide those through Keep Able to help them kind of tackle some of those barriers.
Over on the next slide we have a little bit of a sampler of what some of our resources look like. So we really understand how important it is to start embedding wellness and reablement approaches now and we think that everyone should have the dignity to talk about how they want to embed that independence and that wellness and reablement into their home. We’ve produced a range of different resources. So we have a whole bunch. We have e-learning modules, we have what we call our bite size packs which are train the trainer, we have reablement essentials, we have reablement conversations which are podcasts, a reform hub, an evidence hub. Quite a big range of different ways of presenting topics as well as different topics themselves.
They’re really practical resources and they really cover off every different level of an organisation and embedding that practice and making that change at an organisational level. So whether we’re talking about how we can really shift the kind of culture of an organisation or embedding the importance of those principles at that executive level, or whether we’re talking about a tool that someone can pick up and actually use on the same day in a reablement conversation with an older person. We have something that spans that whole different range. So it really means that no matter how time poor you are we have something that can help you or help your organisation really efficiently embed those principles or help you navigate those conversations.
So I’ll go now through what some of those different resources look like so that you can have a little bit of a taster of what we have to offer. So we’ve got here some examples about e-learning modules. We’ve got Part 1 and Part 2 about the power of the LifeCurve. Which if we pop over to the next slide I’ll show you in a little bit more detail what that looks like.
So the LifeCurve is based off the research by Professor Peter Gore from Newcastle University in the UK. He has spent 30 years researching age related decline and how people can stay independent for longer. And what his research has shown is that people lose the ability to perform the specific series of tasks which we have over on the left hand side in that specific order. So we can see on the Y axis we’ve got the tasks that older people can do and on the X axis we have the time of which they can do them. So the goal is to have more people able to do more of these tasks for longer, and where clients are experiencing an early decline in their function which is the purple line on the left of the graph, to look at how we can use wellness and reablement principles to help return that functionality.
So this is a resource that we find often when we’re presenting both to care providers or to older people themselves it’s a real lightbulb moment. People can see in a really kind of concrete, tangible way the things that they do or they encounter in their life and where they’re kind of sitting with that process, but we can also see where we have some opportunities to kind of turn that ship around. So this is a resource we have on our website that you can share. It’s not one that we developed ourselves. As we can see it was developed by ADL Research and by Peter Gore. But it's something we have available for you to use in a nice handy takeaway kind of tool. But we also have that available for you in those e-learning modules which really do more than the kind of two second job I’ve just run through of explaining the process. They really unpack what the LifeCurve means, how the research arrived at that point and how you can use it in practicality. So those are really helpful if you want to set aside a sort of ten or 15 minute block to do some self-paced learning. That’s an excellent thing you can pick up and use in your practice.
On the next slide we have an example of our bite size packages. So these are our train the trainer sets. They include a presentation that you can take back and deliver at your workplace. They include a facilitator guide that will take you through how to deliver that presentation so you’re not left on your own in the dark. And they also include some activity sheets that will help you to facilitate what that actually looks like in practice. So if you know that you have an internal staff training session coming up or you have a staff meeting with a little bit of spare time this would be an excellent type of resource for you to bring along and get everyone involved and building that capacity in a kind of group context.
You see that ‘Everything you do for me; you take from me’. You might have come across that quote in the context of Montessori schools. It is a quote from Montessori but repurposed and equally applicable we feel to older people.
On the next slide we have an example of our reablement essentials. Sorry. These were examples of the different resources that come in your train the trainer pack. So I mentioned the facilitator guide, the skills and activities and the answer sheets for those. So you can see we really give you everything you need to run those yourself. We don’t leave you high and dry. On the slide after that we have the reablement essentials which is a digital booklet that comes with a whole lot of different examples, eg things like if you’re struggling with care plans we’ve got some ideas for how you can tackle those, and quite a lot more to come on that front as well.
On the next slide we have possibly my favourite of our resources. So we have featured Hillary O’Connell on this slide who’s our Principal Advisor of healthy ageing and reablement and she has had a series of really fantastic conversations with a bunch of different high profile guests from not just across the country but around the world. And if you’ve been paying attention you might notice the last name on the list. Professor Peter Gore is the man who came up with the LifeCurve in the first place. So some quite heavy hitting conversations there. And she’s pulled those together into some really interesting conversations in podcast form that sit about the 15 to 20 minute mark. So they’re perfect for if you’re driving between clients or you’re starting or finishing your day and you want something to just kind of keep your brain ticking over as you go, give you a bit of food for thought. And they’re really fantastic examples of how people have actually put wellness and reablement principles into action and I find them very inspiring.
Over on the next page we have our reform hub where we break down the latest changes that are coming and make sure that they are nice and accessible and easy to understand. Going a little bit quick for you to read the slides but hopefully grabbing the gist. On the next slide after that we have on a similar note the evidence hub which is where we take the latest research that’s been happening in that academic space. We recognise that not everyone has the time or the interest to sit down and kind of do an original lit review for themselves so we can take that research for you, break it down, help it fit into a time poor schedule, and we also include some reflective questions for yourself and your team. And some of the feedback that we’ve had about the way people use evidence hub is that those questions are some of the most valuable parts and that they really offer people the opportunity to really kick off some deeper conversations in their workplace about how they can change their practice.
And then in our last slide for this section we also had a tremendously successful forum in March of this year where we brought together a number of different feature speakers and we had hundreds of registrations. I think we had about 600 people sign up to attend. So we had really awesome engagement. It really shows how much interest there is in the topic and we’re looking forward to running another one of those over the next year.
So that’s a bit of a taster of what we have available at the moment to give you sort of a sense of the scale of the variety of resources and ways that we can help you already today look like. But as Josh mentioned we’re significantly expanding our resources and the support that we can offer you in the future. So to give you a little bit of a rundown of what our next year or so looks like in the land of Keep Able the work that we’re doing really falls into two different streams. So on one hand we’re significantly scaling up the range of the resources that we have, so looking at what extra formats would be helpful for you, what topics would be of most need, and then in our other kind of stream of work we’re looking at how we can do some really deep research into the best way to deliver wellness and reablement support to you.
So in that stream of work we’re using a behavioural science framework which Josh mentioned earlier. We’re delving into really understanding the challenges that you’re facing in the industry, working together with you to define exactly what it is that you need and then designing and building the best digital tool for the job as well as identifying what the other kind of supporting non‑digital aspects for that, for example engagement, might look like. And while we’re going through that research process which is quite in-depth and is quite extended we’re also working on how we can accelerate our content development.
So we’re looking at things like how we can build out more care planning templates like I mentioned before, how we can build out our client stories so that we have not only some really worked examples for people who might be doubting the ability to integrate wellness and reablement into their practice but some stories we can potentially bring along to share with your clients. We’ll be working on more content around the LifeCurve which is a big fan favourite and something that we’d love to put into a bit more of an interactive format. We are looking at how we can produce some content to help people navigate all the different allied health roles that they might be interacting with as part of their wellness and reablement journey, helping people navigate the new aged care standards, really building out our train the trainer resources so that you can take those away and be really spreading that knowledge yourself as you become champions for wellness and reablement in your own workplace. And we’ll be expanding our engagement efforts as well.
So at the same time we’re doing that deep dive research we’ll be working on building out all of those extra resources as we go. And the goal is that by the time we get to the end of that process we will be the go to hub for wellness and reablement. There will be no more kind of time wasted for you digging around everywhere. We will be the one stop shop that’s going to help you deliver to the Quality Standards, it’s going to allow you much more time for direct care. So that scaling up of resources, at the moment that’s in the strategy stage. We’ll start rolling those out from September. So it won’t be too long for you to keep your eyes peeled to see what that looks like.
And then just on our final slide there I just wanted to leave you with firstly how you could find us because I’m sure after getting that little taster you are very keen to go and have a bit of a play yourself and dig around with what we have available. But I also wanted to really emphasise to you how important the codesign element of our work is. So for everything we create at iLA we want to make sure that what we are doing is actually of real value to the sector. So over the next couple of months that research component of our work will be really taking off. So just in the next month alone we’ve got quite a few different opportunities to get involved that I would really, really love to have your input into. We’ll be running these one on one deep dives. So we’ll be looking for really dozens of decision makers as well as people who have their boots on the ground in the care sector. So we want to make sure that your voices are really heard while we’re designing that tool and designing that solution. So we’ll be having a whole bunch of deeper conversations with people. And if that interests you grab your phone out and scan the QR code on the screen because I would very much like to grab your details and have a chat.
We’ll also be working on getting input on our content roadmap. So I mentioned what that scaling up of resources will look like and the kind of bit of an indicative breadth of what those could be. And I would love to road test with you which of those you would like to see first, which topics would be of most value and what we’ve missed that you would like to see included. So same thing. If you are keen to start feeding your opinions in there I would love to hear them. And just scan the QR code.
And then lastly any information that you’d love to provide about those kind of topics that would be most helpful we are keen to have on an ongoing basis. So I’m very excited to work alongside and together with all of you on this project. I hope that you will share your voices with me. And happy to take some questions at the end. I’ll hand back over to Sharna.
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Shape the future of Keep Able’, ‘Thank you for taking the time to learn more about what KeepAble has to offer you and your organisation’, ‘www.keepable.com.au’, ‘f in @keepable’, ‘Keep Able’, with image of QR code]
Sharna Eastaughffe:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Questions and Answers’]
Thank you so much Liberty and thank you to Josh and Janine as well. What we’re going to do now is open the floor up to some pre-submitted questions or any questions that you’ve put into the chat while you’ve been listening. And I will start off with – we don’t have too many so if you guys still have a lot of questions, because we can’t turn your mic on to physically ask the question, if you can chuck it in the Q&A and I will put it to the panel.
So the first question.
Q: How can we best help aged care providers to develop high levels of digital maturity to embrace the digital technologies?
This might be a combination question for all three of you if you’re interested.
Josh?
Josh Maldon:
Do I put my hand up or just start talking?
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Or I just get to nominate.
Josh Maldon:
If you could just nominate us. Just pick on us and then we’ll go on from there. But I agree with you. I think you’re probably going to get responses from all three of us. And we’ve outlined some of the work that we’re doing in the context of this digital strategy and I have to say there’s the stuff that the Australian Digital Health Agency is doing, but Liberty the stuff you guys are doing, that’s super exciting as well. But it’s also about hearing from the aged care workforce itself, from individual people about what other supports we can put in place to encourage and support. So I would say that you’re across the things that we’re doing now. What are the next things that we could be doing that you think would have the greatest benefit so that we can then take those options to Government? Janine I felt like you were going to jump in.
Janine Bennett:
No. No. All good. I’m happy for you to go first for every question Josh. Look from a technical point of view I think there’s things we can do around using best practice, modern solutions that people will be familiar with, making sure we have agreements across things like our data standards, systems are easier to comply with and data easier to share and interoperable systems, that everybody’s kind of speaking the same language. So being really careful to design our systems well. So from a technical perspective that’s what we want to do. On a practical sense we know that it helps developers and providers if they get early access to the sorts of solutions we’re developing. That’s what our codesign sessions are all about. That’s why we have sector partners and Tech Talks and those sorts of things, because we’re trying to up visibility about what’s coming out. And then exactly as Josh said, I think just having those ongoing conversations where we’re collectively problem solving for this. Government doesn’t have all the answers. We’ve got some answers. We’re experts in some areas and other people have expertise in other areas, and we need to kind of pull together and draw the best sort of collective response out of the room. So keeping those conversations going and being really open about the opportunity and challenges.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Cool. Liberty? I mean your whole presentation was kind of on supporting this so we might be able to take that one as answered for you.
Liberty Cramer:
Well I wanted to just add quickly to the end there that I think that importance of the codesign and the input the whole way through, people feeling involved and being able to communicate the things that you can sometimes miss when you’re really in the trenches is so important, and why we’ve really built that in at every stage. And as one example we had a codesign workshop two weeks ago where we were asking people to really kind of share the barriers that they were facing. And one person reminded us that not everyone is in the metro area and that if we want to really engage with a diverse group of stakeholders we need to make sure that whatever tech solution we design can work if there’s no phone reception. And that was a really good reminder of the value of having those voices in the room because that’s a point that might have been lost otherwise. So I’m glad we’ve designed that process in that way.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thank you. Question number two.
Q: What do providers need to have in place from a governance perspective to ensure appropriate data and digital use?
Janine Bennett:
I’ll jump in. Sorry Josh.
I need to learn my webinar manners better. I was just going to say one of the things that research tells us is that governance boards do better when they have someone who has high digital literacy on them. So making sure that your governance boards understand the emerging technologies that are out there, how they can opt in to those and making digital maturity a focus for the organisation because it really is an enabler of success. And then I think also there’s a really important role there around advocacy and the ability of those governance boards to check into things like the Data and Digital Strategy or the digital transformation program and actually try and influence outcomes to make sure that your needs are being heard and represented in those types of streams. I’ll handball over. Thanks.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Josh did you want to add anything or are you happy?
Cool.
Q: What is the timeline for this to be fully rolled out?
We did half answer that. I will throw to Josh on this one.
Josh Maldon:
I can jump in. So you can see that there’s actions contemplated clearly specifically for the first year but it also looks into the second year. Again it starts to contemplate what could be beyond that, so in a three year or medium term horizon and then five years plus beyond longer term horizons. And so to us this is a starting point. We know that the environment’s really dynamic and we’re going to have to constantly evolve. Digital and data is so pervasive now and so for us it’s the start of the conversation with you guys about how we best invest in these technologies and the use of data to improve outcomes for older people. So in the foreseeable future is how I would answer that.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thank you. And the last question I have on my list for this afternoon is:
Q: How will the Digital Strategy change the potentials for increased self-management and improving its functionality for the older person to achieve increased independence where they may have a desire to?
Josh Maldon:
Yeah. That’s a good question. So I think a couple of different things I’d say in response to that is firstly one of the capabilities that we’re going to be enabling is certainly self-management and support at home subject to Government decisions and those type of things but that’s broadly within the policy framework there. In residential aged care certainly the places to people is also about improving choice and control in that space. And I think as we progress we’ll look for further opportunities to do that. So at the moment we’ve got obviously the portal for older Australians and also their support people and representatives and the like. There’s capability in there like trackers, they can track their journeys and things like that. To me it’s about undertaking codesign with people as the technology improves and understanding what further opportunities we have. Particularly as we get increasing data in the system too the opportunities start to improve. So to me it’s about hearing particularly from older people about how we can better support them through their journey.
I’m also really excited about the connectivity with My Health Record through that capability as well and starting to join up systems around people.
Liberty? Liberty’s got her hand up.
Liberty Cramer:
Sorry. We need to work on our webinar etiquette I think. I was just going to say that I think some of what I popped on the screen earlier about the LifeCurve really speaks directly to the question and the sorts of digital resources that we’ll be producing through Keep Able and the digital tool that we hope to be able to put in the palm of your hand. That really is directly focused at how we can give people back that – or maybe give back isn’t the right phrasing, but really emphasise for people the independence that they have and the choices that they can make, the control they can have over their own care and how we can keep them independent and having more good days for longer. So if we’re looking at how we can kind of keep them right at the top of the LifeCurve or how we can use some wellness and reablement techniques to help them move a little bit further back up then we’re really talking about how we can improve their functionality and how we can increase their independence if that is something that they want and we hope that they do. So I think the tool that we’ll be working on will speak really directly to that application of the Strategy.
Janine Bennett:
Yeah. I think when you look at aged care reform that drive for greater transparency across the system also is an empowering, enabling thing that encourages people with giving them the information they need to make those decisions. If you look at GPMS a lot of the data that’s captured in there gets translated into the star ratings system and then that is available for people to see on the My Aged Care portal. That means they start to understand better the quality and safety and satisfaction levels across the sector which helps them to make better decisions. But I think to Josh’s point this idea of increasing data and interoperability kind of gives us untold potential in where this could go into the future. It’s a pretty kind of exciting space and I’m keen to see – hopefully by the time I’m looking into aged care facilities it will give me all the information I’ll need to make the choices I want for my own care.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thanks. I lied. I do have an extra question. And we’ve only got a couple of minutes left.
Q: How is all of this amazing work being linked with increasing digital literacy for the clients and their carers?
Josh Maldon:
I can start with that if you like. But I think in the first instance one of the cool capabilities we came across as part of the Strategy and we want to leverage more and more is the Be Connected platform where we’ve had really positive feedback in its ability to engage with older Australians and build their digital capability. We want to also look for other opportunities, so things like Quality Standards where we’re encouraging people to engage in face to face connectivity with people but also help them to use and embrace technology. And so again that’s the sort of thing that we want to hear more about. So I had a conversation with the Council of Elders yesterday on this exact topic too and we put it to them as well to say look these are the things that we’ve got in place at the moment, and again through that Be Connected platform there’s also a range of face to face supports which leverage local regional networks across Australia. But what are the other ideas that we have? So again want to hear more from you in that space.
Sharna Eastaughffe:
Thank you. I don’t have any additional questions on my list. So we would really appreciate if you guys could please complete a quick survey for us to help us improve our webinars. And I will get the QR code up on the screen for you. Thanks. And please scan the code and follow the link. The survey takes about one minute to answer and we would really appreciate any of your feedback.
[Closing visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Webinar survey’, ‘Thank you for attending today’s webinar’, ‘Please provide your feedback by answering 3 short questions’, image of QR code, ‘agedcareengagement.health.gov.au’, ‘1 August 2024’]
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