Asset management plan software created by and for aged care and retirement village operators

In recent years, the importance of Asset Management planning has become of the utmost importance within aged care facilities and retirement villages where if not managed appropriately can cause significant financial impacts as well as non-compliance with the Retirement Villages Act and the Aged Care Quality Standards.

As part of an Aged Care facility’s Accreditation, Standard 5 provides a consumer outcome that all residents feel safe and comfortable in the organisation’s environment (which is soon to be Quality Standard 4 in the upcoming revised aged care quality standards). When being assessed for Accreditation, requirement 3 (b) provides that Furniture, Fittings and equipment must be safe, clean, well maintained and suitable for the resident.

The Quality Standards extend further that an aged care facility must assess and plan which assets they have, the location of these assets, considering resident opinion of the assets and ensuring they are maintained regularly. The underlying principle of these requirements is that residents have suitable assets in their service environment whilst promoting comfort and independence.

Further to this, the recently released Code of Conduct for Aged Care requires the provision of high quality care in a safe and competent manner where it can be considered a breach of conduct if equipment or assets within the facility are unsafe

When accreditation of a facility occurs and to ensure Code of Conduct compliance, certain actions and evidences are needed to pass Standard 5 of the Quality standards

From a resident’s perspective, they need to have access to good quality furniture, fittings and equipment, feel safe when using them, have confidence that the workforce know how to operate assets safely and promote their independence and comfort.

From the perspective of the work force, assets need to be assessed regularly to ensure they are fit for purpose, ensure there is enough equipment and that the location of each asset is known and tracked.

For the organisation, they must provide evidence of the purchase, service, maintenance renewal and replacement of each asset, acting promptly when maintenance or repairs are required. Further, records of all maintenance and repairs of assets must be maintained and up to date at all times.

Recently in New South Wales, under the Retirement Villages Act, it is mandatory to have a 10 Year Asset Management Plan of all assets over $1,000 whilst also tracking every maintenance and repair of those assets. There is a requirement to maintain as asset register, 10 Year Maintenance Plan, 3 Year Report as part of the annual residents budget and a schedule of actual maintenance and repairs of each individual asset. These requirements are likely to move to other states in the near future.

Given the sheer number of assets within aged care facilities and retirement villages, as well as the regular movement of location of assets, it is a not an easy task to keep on top of. It is time consuming and requires attention to detail which means software is generally required to maintain compliance.

Asset Journey is an Asset Management software developed by an an experienced Retirement Village and Aged Care Operator which has recently won the award for ‘Innovator of the Year 2022’ in age services. Their goal is to provide a cost-effective solution that works for both current and future assets whilst also achieving compliance with any relevant industry regulations.

Asset journey prides itself on being a software created by operators-for-operators. This is significant as the experience when joining Asset Journey is tailored from an operator’s point of view. We understand the complexities of asset management and maintenance tasks from an operator’s perspective and have designed Asset Journey with the Aged Care Quality Standards and Retirement Village Regulations in mind.

Operators found that by using Asset Journey, they could manage their assets more efficiently by knowing what assets they have, the repairs or replacements needed, the recurring tasks required and who would do them. They could easily assign jobs to their internal staff or outside contractors. Asset Journey provides the ability to optimise business operations and aid strategic decision making, removing guesswork.

The ability to provide transparency and visibility of asset information and historical data is key to the success of asset management planning. Asset Journey provides the opportunity to track all maintenance and repairs against each individual assets whilst also producing key metrics for potential asset replacement like:

• Remaining useful life
• % of Repairs versus Purchase cost

Maintenance planning schedules also allow your business to track and manage all maintenance of all your assets and providing a maintenance calendar to assist.

At Asset Journey we partner with our clients from initial sign up all the way through to go live and ongoing use of the program. Ongoing dialogue and communication are key for the implementation process but also for continuous development and satisfaction of our clients.

Visit www.assetjourney.com or call 0419 435 311to find out more.