Benchmarking - Don't Just Do It, Use It! Multicultural Aged Care's Positive Experience During Accreditation, Director of Care Alwin Gallina Explains

Multicultural Aged Care Services (MACS) provides residential and community aged care services in Geelong. It has two residential aged care facilities, Mary Costa House (30 beds - high care) and Borrela House (40 beds - low care). The Director of Care is Alwin Gallina and he has many years of experience in managing both hospitals and aged care. Alwin has also been a surveyor for the hospital accreditation body, The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards and has a strong desire to ensure that quality management is entwined into all levels of the organisation.

MACS Aged Care facilities, Mary Costa House and Borrela House were last assessed for accreditation in March 2009 and staff were delighted to find that the Agency Assessors were highly impressed by the quality systems that they found. It was noted that QPS Benchmarking is an integral part of the MACS systems. Alwin explains "it was not the fact we simply had benchmarking data that was important, it was how we used it, and communicated the results at all levels of the organisation to evaluate our performance and seek opportunities for improvement. Our systems are transparent and the assessors could easily see the linkages of our benchmarking through our committee structures and strategic planning".

Multicultural Aged Care Services (MACS) has a formally constituted Continuous Quality Improvement Committee and also Quality Forum Committee (QFC) that meets quarterly. The Quality Forum Committee comprises of a board member, management, staff and community representatives. The agenda for this committee includes: Compliance with Legislation; Education; Review of Internal and External Performance Management Results. The QFC is where most other committees report to e.g. OHS, Food Safety.

The aged care assessors were impressed by the evidence they found of follow through. One such example was from the facility's Quality Forum committee:

Extracted from the Quality Forum Minutes February 2009

It was also found by the Assessors that the QPS Benchmarking results were a significant part of the information used for strategic planning purposes. There was clear evidence of information flowing through to the Board and that QPS results featured in the quality report written for the Board. Alwin Gallina said `the Board often makes comments on the report and we ensure that these comments flow back through our committees and quality processes". The following extract is a typical example of information that flows through to the full board committee meeting.

Extracted from the Quality Forum Board Minutes February 2009

Note: During the compilation of this article Alwin provided numerous sets of minutes and all of them contained information about their benchmarking results and overall performance outcomes.

Key staff are encouraged to do presentations to the senior committees and the Board and this helps to share ideas, celebrate success and to give staff confidence in how they explain quality initiatives.

Editor's note: The message from Alwin Gallina is such an important one. QPS constantly receives feedback on positive accreditation experiences where it can be shown that the results are communicated throughout the organisation and used to search for improvement opportunities. If you would like to discuss such strategies please contact your Principal Consultant.