Flexible health, wellness and lifestyle services are the focus of a new home care program launched by not-for-profit aged care and retirement living provider Southern Cross Care WA.
Named Southern Plus, the program has both reablement and preventative aims through a range of allied health and chronic disease home monitoring options, which offer the provider new income streams, in addition to traditional home care services.
The new program comes in response to clients’ increasingly complex healthcare needs and their demands for greater flexibility and options in how they received lifestyle and care services, said Jane O’Halloran, SCC WA acting CEO.
“We are very much focused on providing not only services to support reablement of our clients but also that act to prevent our clients against getting serious health issues in the future, which could diminish their quality of life and independence,” Ms O’Halloran told Australian Ageing Agenda.
She said Southern Plus included a broad range of allied health services such as physiotherapy and podiatry offered in clients’ homes along with occupational therapy to ensure the home setup met their needs.
Meals, clinical care, transport, respite, specialist support for mental health conditions including dementia and Alzheimer’s and initiatives to cater for particular conditions or events such as a transitioning from hospital and assistive monitoring devices were also on offer.
The information collected by the monitoring devices is linked to SCC’s health management system cdmNet, which can share clinical health information with primary health professionals, Ms O’Halloran said.
“In doing so, we can tap into shared preventative care, enabling better health planning to provide the most appropriate and individualised care for clients when they need it most,” she said.
Creating additional revenue
Southern Plus provided a new income stream for SCC, Ms O’Halloran said.
“As changes to government funding come into effect in February, we’re also anticipating that more clients will be privately-funded and they will expect more extensive service offerings, thus opening up further opportunities for new income streams.”
In the near future, Southern Plus will launch a new health and wellness facility in East Fremantle with a GP practice, allied health services, wellness day therapy centre, rehabilitation hydrotherapy pool and fitness classes as well as a large aged care facility offering specialist dementia care.
Also in development are health and wellness hubs in Ridgewood and Currumbine will support couples with frail health and chronic health conditions to age in place together in modern properties with access to community, medical and lifestyle services.
Want to have your say on this story? Comment below. Send us your news and tip-offs to editorial@australianageingagenda.com.au
Pleased to see this initiative being put in place.
For a while now we have been promoting the concept of adding a revenue stream by offering the family more insight into the loved one’s daily routine.
Takes new technology to do that such as the internet of things but now at last we can use discrete sensors to gather more activity data on day to day activity
Perfect for such an initiative and also in watching out for trends that could potentially lead to hospitalisation