How digitisation could save the aged care industry
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The aged and disability care industries have been facing pressure for some time now. Staff shortages have plagued plenty of homes in Australia, forcing them to shut doors.
Kinatico described the lack of staff, increasingly difficult compliance regulations, and deadlines as a “perfect storm” that threatens an already struggling industry.
Issues could be lessened by providing these homes with further digitisation to eliminate manual processes.
“Slashing the time spent on manual compliance monitoring means organisations can focus on the overwhelming challenges facing the industry in 2023, and the major one is attracting and retaining the staff required to meet higher minimum staffing ratios to provide better services,” commented Kinatico chief executive Michael Ivanchenko.
According to The Conversation, aged-care facilities will need to increase staff headcounts by 12.4 per cent by October to keep up with the government’s minimum employee numbers.
By implementing a more digitised approach, workloads could be lessened, freeing up time for caring for those in these facilities.
“Against this backdrop, there are increasingly more complex issues surrounding stricter compliance, and it’s now more important than ever that organisations in the aged care and disability space find time-saving technological solutions to these ongoing and evolving challenges,” said Mr Ivanchenko.
“Spreadsheets just don’t cut it any more. Organisations that are still attempting to manage compliance through spreadsheets or a paper-based approach face an impossible task.”
The aged-care royal commission found that the industry was far behind other sectors in implementing technology. This has reportedly resulted in human error, creating further issues.
Mr Ivanchenko continued: “The biggest problem is human error in data entry, but there are other issues. This also creates standalone systems that do not integrate with each other, no centralised source of data, a lack of transparency, and an inability to automate time-consuming manual processes.”
“Switching to an end-to-end digital platform for managing workforce compliance in aged care and disability services produces both immediate and long-term benefits.”
The benefits outlined by Kinatico include:
- Meeting regulatory requirements
- Reducing operational overheads
- Building trust and confidence
- Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable individuals
- Improving the quality of care
More can be done to care for our older citizens. HR Leader recently discussed the issue of ageism and gave tips on how to stamp it out in the workplace:
- Provide discrimination and diversity training
- Introduce policies and enforce them
- Reward based on performance, not tenure
- Start with hiring
- Don’t let go of employees based on age or pay
RELATED TERMS
Ageism, often known as age discrimination, is the act of treating someone unjustly because of their age. In the workplace, this might manifest as a person being passed over for a job or promotion, older workers being denied benefits or early termination of employment.
In the context of health experience, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) defines disability as an umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. It denotes the negative aspects of the interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and that individual's contextual factors (environment and personal factors).
Jack Campbell
Jack is the editor at HR Leader.