The Aged Care Sector

Key concepts;

Leadership and governance practices in the aged-care sector bore the brunt of the Royal Commission Report

Visible, execution-able strategies are 21st century best practice to getting the best from your teams

Now is the time to revisit strategy, focus and align teams + setup governance structures

Aged care is one of the toughest operating environments imaginable. Residents with a wide range of needs, complex family stakeholder groups, funding pressures … but the elderly deserve our full attention and effort. Having acknowledged that, the three-volume Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Interim Report: Neglect, released on 31 October, 2019 was an eye opener for many reasons — from stories of neglect to misaligned internal teams and complex, inadequate communication structures. In other words, all practices that shouldn’t exist in the 21st century given our knowledge of how to make the most of teams and how best to focus them on what matters most — the residents and patients under care.

For a sector as large as Aged Care sector, estimated recently to be in the vicinity of $18 billion it is concerning that it could even get into a state as dangerous as what was documented. Governance and strategies that look good on paper but weren’t executable/well known, a “culture of apathy”, a lack of transparency in communication, reporting and accountability were all surfaced through the report and give the sector several areas of focus as we head into a new decade.

While it’s easy to point the finger at the leadership structures and governance frameworks in place it is probably worth noting that it isn’t human nature in 99% of cases to cause the kind of outcomes the report surfaced. The outcomes were from a combination of;

• Immature leadership practices
• Disengaged teams
• A lack of transparency
• Unclear strategies
• Low or no reporting or accountability maturity

Going forward there is a huge opportunity in this massive sector to refocus funding, teams and effort on what matters most — those vulnerable folk in the care of these aged care service providers. A connection to a residents / patients outcome is what most clinical and operational staff in the health industry desire.

It’s what makes the healthcare industry special — the ability to see direct change from the efforts you bring to work with you.

At CureVentus we firmly believe that a visible strategy aligned to resident / patient outcomes is the start of initiating change like what will begin to occur in the aged care sector. Couple that with transparency, accountability and a reporting cadence and you get the building blocks of positive change.

It’s now up to the boards and the leadership teams to begin on that path to positive outcomes and accreditation should be viewed as the bare minimum to aspire to, In a decade where social media has broken down communication silos and word of mouth is critical in customer/patient acquisition and retention, it’s those organisations that embrace patient-centricity through a resident and patient-led strategy that will benefit the most.

CureVentus is strategy framework that enables healthcare organisations to focus on patient outcomes. This is achieved by aligning teams to organisational objectives and equipping everyone with the ability to autonomously contribute to those objectives. To read more head over to the website.