Outcome monitoring data released
The latest quality and safety monitoring and benchmarking reports from ROSA are available for residential and home aged care providers.
The Registry of Senior Australians has released its public and provider reports on outcome monitoring for aged care, with antibiotic use and wait-time for home care packages topping the prevalence lists for residential and home care providers respectively in South Australia.
The reports examine the quality and safety of care against 12 indicators for residential aged care and 15 for home care package services across the state. The public reports can be used by all providers to benchmark against, while individual facility and provider reports are available to both residential aged care and home care package providers in South Australia.
It is the second release of reports ROSA – which is based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute – has produced on its Outcome Monitoring System following the inaugural release in 2022.
The pragmatic and low-burden quality and safety monitoring and benchmarking system delivers information to aged care providers to support evidence-based quality improvement activities.
“These reports offer valuable benchmarking opportunities and aim to stimulate conversations on best practices within and between providers, thereby enhancing the care of older Australians,” ROSA director Professor Maria Inacio told Australian Ageing Agenda.
Residential care reports
The public-facing ROSA OMS Residential Aged Care Brief Report for SA 2024 describes the variation in quality and safety of care received by 11,669 South Australians enrolled in ROSA in aged care facilities in July 1 2021-June 30 2022.
Of the 12 indicators examined, antibiotic use had the highest prevalence (54.1 per cent) followed by exposure to high sedative load (38.4 per cent), emergency department presentations (35.7 per cent) and exposure to chronic opioid use (20.6 per cent). Prevalence of the other indicators for permanent residents of aged care facilities include:
- antipsychotic use: 16 per cent
- falls-related hospitalisation: 11.3 per cent
- delirium or dementia-related hospitalisation: 4.9 per cent
- fractures: 4.5 per cent
- pressure injury-related hospitalisation: 1.7 per cent
- medication-related hospitalisation: 1.2 per cent
- malnutrition or weight loss-related hospitalisation: 1.1 per cent
- premature mortality: 0.2 per cent.
Home care reports
The public-facing ROSA OMS Home Care Brief Report for SA 2024 report describes the variation in quality and safety of care experienced by 16,843 home care package recipients in South Australia enrolled in ROSA in July 1 2021-June 30 2022.
It found more than three-quarters of those recipients waited more than six months for home care services (78 per cent). The next most prevalent indicators include antibiotic use (48 per cent), chronic disease management plan (43.7 per cent) and emergency department presentations (40.9 per cent).
On the the prevalence or incidence of the other 14 indicators experienced by home care recipients, the report found:
- exposure to a high sedative load: 26.2 per cent
- chronic opioid use: 13.2 per cent
- antipsychotic use: 5.6 per cent
- falls-related hospitalisation: 11.0 per cent
- delirium or dementia-related hospitalisation: 11.2 per cent
- fractures: 4.5 per cent
- malnutrition or weight loss-related hospitalisation: 3.0 per cent
- medication-related hospitalisation: 2.7 per cent
- home medicines review: 2.6 per cent
- pressure injury-related hospitalisation: 2.3 per cent
- premature mortality: 0.1 per cent.
Individual reports also available
For those in South Australia, a personalised report allows providers to examine their facility’s cohort characteristics and performance across the 12 ROSA OMS indicators, along with benchmarks for comparison to national rates. For the current reporting period, 208 individual facility-specific reports are available.
A similar report for home care enables providers to examine their service cohort characteristics and outcomes across 15 ROSA OMS indicators, with benchmarks for comparison. For the current reporting period, 97 individualised home care service-specific reports for SA home care providers are available for circulation.
The free individual provider reports are available to SA aged care providers with 20 or more care recipients enrolled in ROSA. To request a report, providers should send an email to rosa.oms@sahmri.com with a signed copy of their ROSA OMS Reports Request Form, which you can download here. Providers are able to use their individualised reports for publication, public release and other communications at their discretion.
The ROSA OMS was built from a collaboration between the ROSA team, aged care providers, peak bodies, clinicians, and consumer representatives.
“These reports are instrumental in driving quality improvement, transparency and accountability across the aged care sector in South Australia,” said Professor Inacio.
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