A Positive Experience with the New Quality Agency in Home Care

Founded in 1980, Australian Nursing Home Foundation Ltd (ANHF) is one of the largest Chinese Aged Care organisations in Australia.

Over the years, ANHF as a community-based, non-profit organisation has distinguished itself in providing efficient and effective client-centred services to the Australian-Chinese community.

The Foundation is committed to the pursuit of excellence in the provision of quality and culturally competent care for the specific needs of older people from culturally and linguistically deliver (CALD) backgrounds through the provision of Residential Aged Care services for the Chinese Community as well as centre based day care, domestic assistance and social support for CALD communities cross Sydney.

ANHF also delivers Home Care Packages Level 1 to 4, to the Chinese and Vietnamese elderly communities. All our Home Care Packages are individually tailored, planned and managed to assist older people to live independently in their own homes and to age actively.

As from the 1st July 2014, The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency became responsible for undertaking the accreditation process for Home Care Services. The Australian Nursing Home Foundation Ltd underwent accreditation for their Home Care Services and experienced a very positive outcome.

Preparing for the Quality Review

The team at ANHF had been working closely together in preparing for the accreditation visit and were unsure of what to expect from the new Aged Care Quality Agency. The ANHF team were aware the accreditation process requires the service provider to demonstrate the management processes in place to monitor and improve the delivery of care and services. It was therefore important to ensure all the evidence was readily available to demonstrate the comprehensive continuous improvement framework in place.

The first thing that was done was to check that the ANHF Continuous Quality Improvement plan was up to date. The feedback and recommendations provided in the QPS Benchmarking Management reports were used to formulate the most up to date ANHF Continuous Quality Improvement plan.

The QPS Consumer and Carer Experience surveys had been translated in the appropriate languages and the benchmarked results and reports were available with detailed analysis of the major strengths and areas for improvement identified and actioned. Consumer risks had been identified through the use of the Home and Environment Risk Assessment, Care Record audits and the clinical indicator results. The Employee survey results, staff competencies, accidents and activity results were all available, providing evidence of the historical nature and continuous quality improvement and business processes in accordance with the order of Standards and Outcomes.

The Quality Review Visit

The Quality Review team comprised of 4 members visiting for 3 days and undertaking a very thorough review of the care and services provided by ANHF.

The key aspects of the visit included;

• Meetings with our staff and management about our systems, policies and practices in place;
• Face to face interviews with a large proportion of our consumers, family members and staff;
• Review of our documents including care records, policies, procedures, agreements etc;
• Interaction with the day to day environment, culture and activities
• During the visit we made available and displayed our charts and graphs to provide immediate visual reference and evidence of our results across the 18 outcomes. Our comprehensive reports and scorecards were also used to provide evidence of our achievements for the Quality Review team.

Our Results

The ANHF Home Care Program achieved full compliance with no areas requiring improvement. The QPS Benchmarking tools and reports were recognised by the QR assessors as adding value to the ANHF and also in proving evidence for the Quality Review presentation.