iCare Solutions and QPS Benchmarking to Partner

iCare Solutions (iCare) and QPS Benchmarking have joined forces to create enhanced workflow efficiencies for their customers.

iCare and QPS Benchmarking have identified a way to streamline the workflow in aged care, creating enhanced efficiencies for iCare and QPS customers. iCare's Assessment Forms will now include fields required by QPS Benchmarking so information captured at the point of care in iCare can be readily transferred for QPS Benchmarking purposes.

The objective of the solution is to:

• provide a seamless integration of healthcare information between iCare and QPS.

• ensure information that needs to be captured for QPS Benchmarking is captured at the point of care in one assessment form within iCare.

• reduce data entry duplication and thus the risk of data collection and reporting errors.

• provide the aged care industry with an intelligent, all in one system that offers care planning software and benchmarking and performance information, with no additional effort required.

Aged Care providers use QPS Benchmarking to measure their performance and identify strengths and opportunities at a strategic and operational level. The balanced scorecard approach of QPS key performance indicators includes resident acuity, clinical, safety, resident lifestyle, HR and financial performance. iCare captures the clinical data needed for benchmarking purposes so it was logical for both companies to partner and provide greater efficiencies for both shared and new customers.

The partnership has been very well received by their customers and the aged care industry.

"Collecting and benchmarking our clinical indicators allows us, as individual sites or as a group, to identify trends and make changes to improve our processes. This then flows through to an overall performance improvement across each of our facilities. When collecting, submitting and reporting these indicators can be realized in the least amount of time and at the lowest cost, a competitive advantage will be achieved. "

Mary McConochie Chesalon Living, Education & Quality Manager,

Anglicare

"Integrating these systems will provide great benefits for our organisation. Key clinical care indicators will be collected automatically and early identification of trends will provide us with the ability to respond quickly to identified issues."

Dean Gemmill Director of Quality and Innovation,

Good Shepherd Aged Services

About iCare Solutions

iCare Solutions is Australia's leading provider of Care, Clinical & Medication Management software. iCare's software is designed for providers of residential and community aged care allowing internal and external healthcare information to flow throughout an organisation in real time.

Based in Melbourne, iCare is privately owned. It employs 35 staff in Australia and was launched in the UK in September 2007.

iCare has over 40,000 beds implemented with its Clinical and Care software, and another 5,000 in various stages of implementation. iCare's customer base is located Australia wide, with customer size ranging from the largest not for profit aged care provider, with over 5,000 beds, to single facility aged care providers with 20 beds.

In 2008 iCare won the national iAwards for best ICT (information and communication technology) company in Australia for innovation and in 2009 iCare won the ITAC award for innovation.

About QPS Benchmarking

QPS Benchmarking is a leading provider of benchmarking products and services in Australia and New Zealand with over 60 years of combined experience in health, aged care management, quality improvement and business excellence.

QPS provides performance and process benchmarking services to several health care sectors including Residential Aged Care, Community Care, Multi-purpose services, Day Surgeries and Palliative Care Services.

Recognised as "best practice" in benchmarking, the QPS web based system provides state of the art features to allow clients to analyse their data based on expected performance and benchmarks. Real-time benchmarking reports and analysis provide organisations valuable information to identify potential issues and a trigger for improving performance.

QPS clients are provided with opportunities to optimize performance in clinical, financial, resident lifestyle, safety and human resource areas.

Further information, please contact:

Christopher Gray

Telephone: (03) 9652 8100

Web: www.icare.com.au

Silvia Holcroft

QPS Benchmarking Director

Telephone: (02) 4229 5880

Web: www.qpsbenchmarking.com