Catherine Scott

Sundale Ltd

Auditing in aged care aims to improve the quality of care by reviewing care delivered against defined criteria and implementing changes based on the results. 

Internal quality audits are undertaken against the Aged Care Quality Indicators, and the external accreditation and certification measures compliance with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Standards. 

Providers need to regularly review clinical practice levels of activity, processes of care and outcomes, and benchmark performance data with external sources and other similar health service organisations. 

Having systems in place supports:

• Monitoring variation in practice against expected health outcomes,
• Providing feedback to care team members on variation in practice and health outcomes,
• Reviewing performance against external measures,
• Clinicians to regularly take part in clinical reviews of their practice,
• The use of information on unwarranted clinical variation to inform improvements in safety and quality systems, and
• Recording the risks identified from unwarranted clinical variation in the risk management system.

Undertaking audits and being accredited does not eliminate all risk to residents experiencing harm or adverse health events. It highlights the presence of safety and quality systems that support safe and reliable quality care are in place and risks of harm are identified and managed. 

The reasons for undertaking auditing and seeking accreditation include the following:

• Compliance
  • Receiving a certificate of attainment,
  • Licensing implications, and
  • Funding and contractual requirements.
• Verification
  • Verifies that the provider is authorised to provide care,
  • Reassures our residents, their families, and the broader community, and
  • Authenticates a provider’s claims of highly reliable care.
• Quality
  • Demonstrates consistency between a provider’s words and actions,
  • Represents safety and efficacy of practices, and
  • Fosters positive health outcomes for residents.

Audits involve the entire organisation and generally represent four key steps:

• Understanding the Aged Care Quality and Safety Standards and Quality Indicators,
• Ensuring there are people, resources, and support to give effect to any required changes,
• Using a combination of internal and external auditing resources such as the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and
• Completing regular self-assessments that bring together a provider’s evidence showing how they meet the above standards.

During internal audits and external accreditation, a process of triangulating evidence takes place whereby written evidence is compared against what is observed to be occurring in practice and then verified through resident, family, and staff engagement for confirmation.

*The views and opinions expressed in Knowledge Blogs are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of ARIIA, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.

Phillip De Bondi

South Australian Virtual Care Service (SAVCS) - SA Health

Background

The South Australian Virtual Care Service (SAVCS) was established in December 2021, offering the South Australian Ambulance Service (SAAS) direct access to Emergency Department (ED) trained clinicians via a virtual consult. The intent was to avoid inappropriate transfers to the state's emergency department by effectively bringing the senior clinical staff to the patient via video conferencing.

SAVCS data demonstrated that approximately 16% of all referrals to the service from SAAS came from Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF). It was observed that this cohort often had significant delays with waiting for transport to the hospital, waiting at the hospital, and waiting to be transported back home. Evidence from the 2019 Royal Commission into Aged Care noted that residents do not always achieve good outcomes by attending a hospital and that thousands of inappropriate ‘000’ calls come from RACF.

SAVCS saw an opportunity to provide direct access to the SA Virtual Care Service senior clinicians for residents residing in aged care to improve the timeliness of care delivery and reduce the need for residents to move to access care and to better support RACF staff. The virtual consult allows people who know the resident best to discuss the scenario with SAVCS’s urgent care staff directly. Virtual consults allow staff, family, and friends to be included on the call regardless of their geographical location.

Service Development Timeline

• June 2022: A co-design workshop was held with key stakeholders, including SAAS, Primary Health Networks, Aged Care providers, and SAVCS, to develop the pathway.

• July 2022: Engaged with a Pilot Provider to roll out the pathway to their sites.

• August 2022: Engaged with Early Adopter Providers to ensure the initial success of the pathway was not unique to the Pilot Provider.

• October 2022: Opened the SAVCS pathway to all RACF across SA.

Outcomes

At the time of writing, SAVCS has had 1,318 virtual consults with RACF residents across South Australia. 84% of RACF residents will have their care managed with alternate pathways to a traditional emergency department, including offering care in place (66%) of residence without needing to be transported at all. The consulting time for a SAVCS consult is 43 minutes (median) and is far less than the traditional pathway of involving SAAS, transport to ED and time to access, and assessment of bricks-and-mortar ED while avoiding the risk of hospital-acquired complications. SAVCS is safe, with no significant incidents since inception.

Future

We are progressing with the expansion of the pathway to get more RACF to utilise the service. Whilst over 80% of aged care providers have registered to use SAVCS, 40% remain to utilise the service. SAVCS plans to improve this with continued engagement and co-design with our RACF partners. SAVCS is working with partners on opportunities to understand and further support upskilling of RACF nurses in gaining experience in acute assessment. The direct interaction between onsite referring clinicians and SAVCS specialist clinicians is a unique offering to SAVCS.

For more information, please contact: Phillip De Bondi at Phillip.debondi2@sa.gov.au

*The views and opinions expressed in Knowledge Blogs are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of ARIIA, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.