Focusing on client outcomes

With such an array of reforms either in progress or incoming, it’s sometimes difficult for aged care leaders to see the wood for the trees. But despite all the noise and activity in the sector, Care Connect chief executive officer Lynda Chalmers is determined to keep her focus firmly on the horizon.

“Sometimes we look at the reforms that we’re currently facing and we don’t look beyond the future and what the organisation can be and what the sector will be in the future,” Chalmers tells Australian Ageing Agenda. “It’s about having that long-term vision.”

It’s having strategised that long-term vision that no doubt, in part, won Chalmers the CEO role at not-for-profit community care provider Care Connect back in February.

Of her first six months in the role, Chalmers says: “It’s been amazing. We have an amazing leadership team here. The board are extremely supportive of transformational change and being open-minded to an innovative direction for the organisation.”

More of that later.

Chalmers brings to Care Connect a wealth of experience across multifaceted levels of the industry. She tells AAA “I’ve probably held every role there is.” 

Chalmers’ aged care career began three decades ago on the frontline, working as a personal care assistant while studying nursing.

Graduating three years later, Chalmers worked in both hospital and community care settings. “But,” she says, “early on in my nursing career I had a passion for holistic nursing and then moved into community nursing.” Most of which was spent providing hospital-in-the-home care.

Early on, Chalmers gained valuable insights into the benefits of receiving care in the home versus in a hospital or residential aged care setting. Being cared for in your own environment, surrounded by family and friends is massively advantageous, she says. “It’s huge.”

Unfortunately, Chalmers says just a small percentage of older Australians are afforded that choice long term. “I think the Home Care Packages program has fallen short for clients. Only 4-to-12 per cent of our clients get to remain at home.”

To remedy that, Chalmers intends to zero in on the “critical triggers” that send people into residential care. “As a sector, that’s where we need to be focusing if we want to improve client outcomes at home,” she says.

Delivering the best results for clients is a major motivator for Chalmers. “Focusing on client outcomes is important,” she says. “Developing models of care around client outcomes is where we need to focus.”

Chalmers’ client-focused approach stems from her own challenges of navigating Australia’s healthcare system. “I was born with spina bifida,” she says.

This was back in the day, when attitudes toward people living with disabilities was, shall we say, less enlightened. “In the ‘70s, the healthcare system and medical profession was quite different to what it is today,” says Chalmers.

The Home Care Packages program has fallen short for clients

As were people’s expectations of a person living with a disability. “My parents were told not to expect much from their daughter ­– she might not be able to walk, she might not go to a mainstream school, she won’t get married, she won’t have children.”

As a result, says Chalmers, “I know what clients experience when they’re facing challenges.”

She also understands “the limited expectations people have of older people.” Chalmers tells AAA that, just because a person turns a certain age, “doesn’t mean that you aren’t able to make decisions for yourself and be proactive and have a positive ageing experience. Sometimes we box people into those categories like we do in the disability sector.”

Chalmers was determined to break out of the box. “It’s unusual, I think, to be faced with those challenges and then move into a CEO role,” she says.

Which brings us neatly back to Care Connect and its “innovative direction” for the future. As Chalmers acknowledges, there is “significant transformation” ahead for the industry.

“I think the home care sector is going to be the catalyst, especially for those organisations that provide continuum of care,” she says.

There will be, in the near future, a much more integrated model of care, says Chalmers. “There is a lot of fragmentation within the health and aged care sectors and I think that in the next 10 years we’ll see a significant closing of the gap. As a health and aged care sector it is probably time to have one objective and look at client outcomes collectively not individually … I think that’s where we’re headed in the future.”

Certainly, it’s the direction Chalmers intends to steer Care Connect over the next few years. “We’re taking a connections-of-care approach to a new model of care,” she says.

“It’s about understanding the number of connections of care people need to be able to remain at home. It’s going to be integrated with community services, volunteers, the family network, GPs and other health practitioners.”

“Having a skilled, trained, diverse, multidisciplinary organisation is going to be important” to realising an integrated model of care, she says.

Chalmers tells AAA Care Connect – which provides in-home care for clients in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria – intends to diversify and transition between different deliveries of care.

“Looking beyond the home care packages and looking at diversifying to other portfolios around community programs and hospital-in-the-home programs – that’s where we can develop that multiskilled, multidisciplinary approach. And having a different care management model will be centre to that.”

A care management model that focuses on complex care. After all, as the Intergenerational Report 2023 predicted, the number of Australians 85-plus is set to triple by 2063, while the number of people 65-plus is expected to double. As Australians age – and age for longer – they’ll be in want of more intricate care.

Chalmers tells AAA that, if the data is right, and Australia has difficulty meeting the needs of its ageing population, then “it only makes sense to say that complex care is going to sit in the community. As a home care provider, we need to be developing the skillsets and capabilities to be able to deliver on those complexities that are coming in the future.”

Fact file

Lynda Chalmers:

• studied nursing at Deakin University
• began her career in community nursing
• studied leadership and strategic thinking at the Australian School of Applied Management
• held senior leadership roles at Mercy Health and Royal Freemasons.

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