Details on new staffing QIs released
The Department of Health and Aged Care has published guidance material for the three new staffing quality indicators ahead of their introduction in April.
Three new chapters of the quality indicators manual – Part A have been published so providers can prepare for the three new staffing quality indicators that come into place from 1 April.
The three new staffing quality indicators include enrolled nursing, lifestyle officers and allied health.
Four out of the five new data points across the three indicators come from information already reported for the Quarterly Financial Report. New data will only be collected for the recommended allied health services received indicator, which needs to be reported through the Government Provider Management System by 21 July.
The three new quality indicators are measuring:
- EN proportion of total care minutes
- EN proportion of total nursing care minutes (where total equals EN plus RN minutes)
- allied health care minutes
- percentage of recommended allied health services received
- lifestyle officer care minutes.
The government also released the Expanding the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program: Staffing QIs Final Report, which informed the new QIs. The pilot tested nine QIs.
In total, two QIs for enrolled nurses were piloted; EN care minutes per resident per day and the proportion of EN care minutes to total care minutes with a registered nurse, EN and personal care workers. Both Qis were deemed suitable for implementation.
For allied health professionals, four QIs were piloted, focusing on care minutes, services received, and services received when recommended. The care minutes QI was suitable for implementation, but the three others require further research. The new quality indicator of percentage of recommended allied health services was deemed suitable for near-term implementation.
Three QIs were piloted for lifestyle officers, involving care minutes and service attendance. The care minutes QI was deemed suitable but the percentage of care recipients with lifestyle recommendation in their care plan who attended at least one service delivered by a lifestyle officer and percentage of care recipients who attended at least one lifestyle officer service were deemed not suitable for implementation yet.
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The link for the manual goes to the previous version. The 3 new chapters are not present in that version.
I have updated the link to take you straight to the PDF with the staffing indicators.
But if you scroll down on that original link, also below, you will find a link to the PDF with the new chapters below the PDF with the existing chapters.
https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/national-aged-care-mandatory-quality-indicator-program-manual-30-part-a?language=en