The residential aged care sector has achieved a “really good record” in the fourth accreditation round, according to the CEO of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency.

Mark Brandon told the Aged Care Association Australia NSW (ACAA-NSW) State Conference that the industry had improved on its solid performance in the previous accreditation round.

In December 2009, 94 per cent of the nation’s aged care facilities were compliant with all 44 of the agency’s expected outcomes, up from 92 per cent in December 2006.

Mr Brandon added that non-compliant homes today tend to have fewer problems than they did in the past.

“Where there is non-compliance, the number of areas that are found to be non-compliant is much lower,” he said.

“We are not finding so many homes that have failed to meet five or six of the expected outcomes any more. They are more likely to have just one, two or three issues.

"And when we find non-compliance, the vast majority [of homes] manage to fix the problem within the timetable for improvement.”

The agency has analysed the data from non-compliant homes in the latest round to identify the most common risks for residential providers.

They include changes in ownership, changes in systems and processes, the loss of key staff, building projects and changes in resident mix.

“Those things by themselves are risks,” said Mr Brandon. “They don’t mean that a disaster is going to happen but you do have to manage them carefully.

"If you ignore them or fail to manage them properly, you will have problems.”

The biggest stumbling block for homes was expected outcome 1.8 which deals with information systems.

Mr Brandon said information management was fundamental in running any type of business.

“You need to be measuring the things that need to be measured and monitoring the data in a way that’s meaningful,” he said.

“A lot of groups know how to collect the information but where they fall apart is in making sense of it all. You find there is a problem when staff and management don’t have the skills to analyse the information.”

The other outcomes that kept cropping up in reports of non-compliance were clinical care, human resource management, medication management and behaviour management.