In a move that underscores the growing maturity of the aged care market, a major aged care software provider has joined forces with QPS Benchmarking to incorporate key data collection into its care programs.

New fields have been added to iCare’s assessment forms so that information needed for benchmarking can be captured at the point of care.

It is hoped that the new system will reduce data entry duplication and reporting errors.

“With the QPS benchmarking at the moment, providers are collecting information twice and we don’t want them to have to do that,” said iCare’s managing director, Chris Gray.

“If we can create forms in our systems that directly link to the benchmarking, that brings an added value for our customers with immediate time savings.”

Mr Gray said idea was first suggested by aged care providers which use iCare software and QPS Benchmarking services.

The new system is currently being piloted by Chesalon Living in Sydney and Good Shepherd Aged Care Services in Melbourne.

“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,” said Chesalon’s education and quality manager, Mary McConochie.

“This then flows through to an overall performance improvement across each of our facilities.

“When collecting, submitting and reporting these indicators can be realised in the least amount of time and at the lowest cost, a competitive advantage will be achieved.”

QPS Benchmarking uses a balanced scorecard approach to measure the performance of aged care services in clinical care, safety, resident lifestyle, human resources and financial performance.