Providers raise concern about ‘digital readiness’
With the new Act and accompanying regulatory and administrative changes coming on 1 July, aged care executives tell AAA that IT systems may not be ready on time.
The aged care sector is facing numerous institutional and legislative changes, with the new Aged Care Act, new Support at Home program and new reporting requirements on the expanded quality indicators all coming into force on 1 July.
These changes have generally been met with a positive outlook by providers Australian Ageing Agenda spoke to but some hold concerns over the timeline these changes are expected to start – particularly changes to IT administrative systems.
The Department of Health and Aged Care has been releasing digital tools with the aim of assisting providers to prepare, such as the digital maturity self-assessment tool, and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission have released tailored guidance on the strengthened quality standards, but for some providers the lack of clarity on the practical essence of the changes has left them doing guess work while trying to prepare.
For mid-size provider Flexi Care, the looming 1 July changes are coming too quickly and too ambiguously, general manager Adrian Morgan told AAA.
“Although the actual Aged Care Act has passed, all the detail about how it will operate, or a large amount of that detail has not yet been even given to us in draft form, much of it we haven’t seen at all and none of it is locked down, and that’s where all the details are about how things will actually work,” he said.
“The thing that gives rise to the anxiety is that [the department] has missed so many deadlines already.
“It doesn’t build confidence at this stage, but less than five months out, we would hope we would have a very concrete plan and that they would now be working to that plan and there’d be no more slippage of timelines,” he told AAA.
Mr Morgan also holds fear there won’t be enough time to properly check and verify the new IT systems. Kane Singh – Anglicare Southern Queensland’s chief operating officer of aged and community services – shares this concern.
“One of our key concerns is around digital readiness and how our systems and technology will implement the new requirements,” Mr Singh told AAA.
He said the Transition Support IT grant is a welcome first step in supporting providers to be digitally ready for the reforms, but the cost of compliance is daunting and believes more could be done in terms of operational and administrative funding to support the long-term sustainability of aged care providers.
“Additionally, we recognise the complexity of the reforms and the impact that they have on our clients. We would value further support from the government to explain and roll out the changes to clients,” Mr Singh told AAA.
“We would like to see more planning and firm commitments from the government to ensure success. Daily quality care and service provision still needs to be considered and delivered.”
Anglicare SQ has been making the most of the practical guides and tools released so far and looks forward to seeing additional resources from the government in the coming months, said Mr Singh, but given the time critical nature to embed these significant changes he said he would like the government to consider additional support for the sector.
“In the last financial year, we provided care to over 35,000 aged care clients in southeast Queensland. Whilst the opportunity the reform brings us as a provider is exciting, it is also daunting to reflect on the time and cost involved to implement the new infrastructure, workforce and resources to adequately provide the service levels required,” he explained.
‘Things will come as they’re ready’
For OneCare chief executive officer Peter Williams, the IT changes are not something to be overly concerned about, telling AAA that while it will obviously require internal changes, he is satisfied with the information that has been released.
“I’m comfortable with the information that’s being provided to us along this pathway,” he said.
“Recognising that the industry has to shift with this transition, for things like IT systems, obviously things need to change within that, but we’re still waiting on some of the rules and regulations and business rules in order to model what the impact on our financials might look like. Even though I’m aware of that, I’m not concerned that we haven’t been given the information and we’re going to run out of time.
“We have to be open to being responsive to the fact that things will come as they’re ready, and we can only do the best job we can with the information that’s provided.”
The not-for-profit, non-sectarian provider is one of the larger Tasmanian-based organisations, providing residential care, retirement living and community services to more than 2,000 people across the state. Mr Williams said the organisation has been involved in providing feedback to the department and the transition taskforce, which has been beneficial for planning.
“There’s certainly things that [we] are still uncertain about as an industry, but I think that’s part of the responsibility from a service provider point of view, is to really proactively engage in as many forums and spaces as you can to elicit the information that’s needed,” he told AAA.
Like Mr Morgan, Russell Bricknell, chief executive officer at Juniper, thinks a lot of the information has come too late and too quick for the proposed timeline but he does not believe the department is at fault. Rather, Mr Bricknell believes the length of time it took for the new Aged Care Act to get through parliament is what has left providers – and the department – rushing to prepare.
“If the politicians had been able to achieve that earlier, everybody would be in a better position,” he said.
“We’ve got six months to do our reform that probably should have taken 12 to 18 months, because it is a lot of significant reform.”
Despite these worries, Mr Bricknell emphasised that he believes the department has “come to the party pretty quickly with documentation once they’ve been able to,” and that they have been supportive of providers during this transition period.
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