The aged care provider industry is evolving fast, thanks to a raft of improvement reforms announced by the Government in 2021. The $18.3 billion, five-year package aims to support the aged care sector in ensuring every senior Australian receives adequate care, respect, and dignity. The reform plan, which involves business, operational, and quality of care changes, also addresses recommendations from the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
Across five distinct pillars – home care, residential aged care services and sustainability, residential aged care quality and safety, workforce, and governance – the newly implemented and upcoming measures pose a significant challenge for organizations already struggling to keep up with regulatory and client demand. Stringent accountability, reporting, and record-keeping obligations are vital for providers accessing funding, and if they don’t deliver on these responsibilities, funding may be cut.
If these reforms have disrupted your aged care business, your current business management system may not be coping, revealing detrimental inadequacies across financial, workforce, and customer relationship management. These shortcomings are only set to be exasperated by the new Star Rating System coming at the end of 2022, which empowers people to make informed decisions by comparing residential aged care services.
In this increasingly competitive environment – coupled with upward pressure on costs – upgrading your business management system might be the ideal solution. With the right ERP software, navigating reform changes can be smooth sailing. To help you decide whether the investment is worthwhile, consider the following questions.
Is Rostering and Scheduling of Care Staff Taking Too Much Time?
In 2020, 16 percent of Australia’s population was 65 and over. The number is set to grow in the coming years, and by 2066, older people in Australia will comprise between 21 and 23 percent of the country’s population. This trend means a higher demand for aged care services, which, in turn, requires a larger workforce. However, we are already experiencing a dire aged care worker shortage, with research suggesting the industry needs 17,000 new workers annually to meet basic standards of care.
For businesses operating in this climate, workforce management is critical, particularly as new mandatory care time standards will soon come into effect. From 1 October 2023, the standards are shifting to a minimum of 200 minutes of care time per day for residents in aged care facilities, including 40 minutes with a registered nurse.
Effective workforce management can significantly improve efficiencies and productivity by powering all processes involved in staffing and scheduling. HR teams also gain access to accurate real-time data, intuitive reporting, and automation tools to maximise staff time, handle absences, and reduce risk.
Do You Need More and More People Just to Keep Up With Paperwork?
Until now, your aged care organisation may have coped with a fragmented system and time-consuming workarounds. However, with a host of new obligations on the horizon, near enough is no longer good enough.
Manual processes are not just time-consuming. They also invite errors and even security breaches – according to a 2021 survey, human error is the number one cause of serious data breaches, with 84 percent of surveyed organisations experiencing a breach due to an employee mistake.
The right ERP system can reduce or eliminate manual processing, freeing your existing staff’s time to work on mission-critical activities and eradicating the need to grow your workforce. In addition, a robust ERP paves the way for agility, allowing you to manage your business’ administrative, procurement, financial, marketing, and most importantly client needs, in line with changing regulations.
Does Your Client Experience Meet Expectations?
The Aged Care Royal Commission Final Report Summary states:
“Over the course of our inquiry, we have identified clear common themes in what the community expects from the aged care system: dignity and respect, control and choice, the importance of relationships and connections to communities, and the desire for a good quality of life and aging at home.”
Dignity, respect, control, and choice are what your clients and their families expect from their experience – does your current system help or hinder your ability to meet these expectations?
The right aged care ERP ensures your team is equipped with the information needed to deliver a personalised service found on the individual’s specific needs and wishes. End-to-end client journey tracking offers timely data and insights. At the same time, a self-service porta for care recipients and family members allows for autonomous and empowered management of care requirements, allied health appointments, care plans, and financial statements.
Are You Trying to Manually Manage the Increased Reporting Obligations and Compliances?
The once-in-a-generation aged care reform has undoubtedly increased reporting obligations and compliances for providers. However, if you are trying to manually manage to keep up with these, you are fighting an uphill battle.
First, there’s the move from ACFI to AN-ACC, a shift that aims to make provider’s financial performance more transparent. The AN-ACC funding model applies weightings to determine the price per bed per day based on the needs of individual residents or patients and family characteristics.
Then, there are new quarterly reporting requirements to contend with. Providers are required to compile data from an increasing source pool and report more frequently, adding significant overhead. Refund Accommodation Deposit (RAD) statements must also be presented on demand, and funding software must be PRODA-compliant and capable of processing multiple provider numbers.
Without a purpose-built, future-proof ERP, you and your team cannot tick every box confidently. But with the right system, you can organise and automate how data is collected, stored, managed, and interpreted, making detailed and compliant reporting stress-free.
Future-proof your ERP System
Precise Business Solutions has extensive aged care industry-specific experience and will help you find what parts of your business are starting to hinder your efforts to grow. We work closely with you to understand your requirements and help you realise your business goals in the post-Aged Care Royal Commission era so that you can thrive today, tomorrow, and for years to come.
Interested to discover more? Contact us today.