Reimagining the aged care experience
Managing demand in a financially constrained environment requires a fundamental shift in how organisations operate.
The aged care service of the future needs to meet growing expectations of a dynamic, digitally enabled and more efficient and effective care experience. This will require strong organisational alignment, well-informed governance, sustainable financial management, infrastructure that meet the needs of all and importantly, a greater focus on people and workforce experiences, and community expectations.
Traditional reform initiatives have typically focused on placing the person at the centre of their care; however, recent publicised events and numerous reviews over the past two decades shows this has not always been delivered… Why?
With the final report from the Royal Commission into Aged Care into Quality & Safety having been released, insights into systemic challenges faced across the sector bring to the forefront the need and desire to do things differently, while giving direction on where to first focus resources and efforts.
Demand for aged care services is rapidly increasing, while older Australians’ expectations of the care they receive has changed significantly. The time is now for providers to go beyond what is expected; reimagining aged care through the lens of the person requiring care, their workforce and the communities they operate in to deliver a new aged care experience.
Aged care providers face a number of common challenges and pain points when delivering sustainable transformational change:
Achieving alignment on the vision, mission, strategy and values throughout the organisation
Performance responsibility not commonly shared by appropriate governance and accountability frameworks including robust structures and systems
Having sustainable financial strategies driven through optimised funding and processes
Investing in the right tools, technologies, equipment and information for residents, families and the workforce to deliver high quality safe care every time
Creating a culture that promotes high performing, quality, safe and exceptional care
Using data and information in a way that creates meaningful insights to measure experience and supports the delivery of safe, high quality outcomes
Delivering personal and compassionate care by aligning across a skilled workforce, high quality and safe experiences and innovative digitally enabled environments
Providing innovative, fit for purpose and future fit environments that support service delivery to provide maximum value
Meeting regulatory and compliance obligations while maximising care quality and safety
Aged Care Transformed framework
Overcoming these barriers requires a new approach: one that is human centred, insight driven and digitally enabled, resulting in a dramatically improved experience for all.
Based on extensive research and experience, PwC has designed a framework to bring this new approach to our clients, known as Aged Care Transformed.
The five key elements of the Aged Care Transformed framework focus on delivering improved experiences and high quality, safe outcomes for people and their families, the workforce, and the communities which they support.
Maximise your impact
Is there alignment of your vision, mission, values and strategy throughout your organisation?
True transformation and success stems from solid foundations and clarity of who you are as an organisation. A vision underpinned by governance, driven by the executive, supported by robust systems, designed with staff and looked favourably upon by communities.
Strategic planning must be designed collaboratively to inform technology and operational options that future-proof the delivery of exceptional care of the highest quality and safety.
Delivering purposeful, person-centred experiences
Is there a focus on creating meaningful change to improve a person’s experience of your service?
True transformation in aged care empowers people, measures the whole experience - including individual outcomes - while maintaining a people-centric culture. It means driving quality of life and placing the safety, health and wellbeing of each person at the forefront, always.
It provides an opportunity to improve the whole care experience at every interaction through digitally enabled insights that are delivered accurately and in a timely period.
Inspire better outcomes
Does your organisational culture encourage and enable high performance, collaboration and care?
To deliver high quality, safe and insightful care experiences every time, it is essential that teams and individuals are diligent and skillful, are empowered to continuously innovate and improve, while accepting accountability for achieving objectives.
This is managed through clearly defined roles and responsibilities; a collaborative and psychologically safe culture; and investment in the right capabilities across people, process and technology to deliver quality outcomes.
Deliver quality, safe care with strong results
Does your governance structure, processes and data drive your performance?
A strong governance structure is one that has defined accountabilities which enables alignment of your organisational strategy to service offerings, and optimises performance.
This is informed by data related to finance, customer satisfaction, and safety and quality, to ensure processes are efficient and effective and deliver on operational objectives.
Service quality is key
Does your care environment and infrastructure support high quality care, and are they fit for purpose?
The quality of your infrastructure directly relates to the quality of care provided. Your care environment must meet consumer expectations of human-centred experience now, while being adaptable to future ways of care.
Inevitable advances in technology and design require infrastructure to be flexible, adaptable and digitally enabled to be fit for purpose. This functionality needs to enhance both people-centric service delivery and personalised care requirements.
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