De Paul Villa, Qld - Healthy Ageing Positive Partnerships - awarded 2009
Healthy Ageing Positive Partnerships Innovation (HAPPI)
A custom designed database building on the Comprehensive Medical Assessment (CMA) has won DePaul Villa in Ashmore Queensland a Better Practice in Aged Care Award and has led to some pleasantly unexpected benefits for the home and its residents.
The Healthy Ageing Positive Partnerships Innovation (HAPPI) program was developed in partnership with GPs and allied health professionals to increase the amount and relevance of information in the CMA, which nurses maintain as a living document by updating it with every change in care needs for review by GPs.
By involving GPs in planning care, they are able to easily make referrals to allied health professionals via Medicare, and using the CMA for referrals and hospital transfers has reduced the risk of mismanagement due to inadequate or inaccurate information.
A range of other reports generated from the CMA provide information to assist in care delivery for GPs, nurses, kitchen staff, and allied health professionals, and have led to some unexpected benefits. Staff morale has been boosted with the provision of more accurate and concise information, less time spent collecting information, and incidents have decreased.
Because of the ease with which students can access information, the home has enhanced its relationships with students and training organisations, and is hosting over 100 students through their studies in medical, physiotherapy or nursing degrees, diploma of nursing and certificate III in aged care this year. This has led to recent graduates making a faster transition to employees as they already have a good understanding of the home through their student placement, and the home no longer advertises for staff.
Some benefits of the program include:
- significant reduction in hospital staff seeking information and time spent by nursing staff collating resident information to send to hospital
- care needs summaries provide staff (and agency staff) easy access to key information on resident care.
- reports can be easily reviewed and updated as resident needs change
- up-to-date information for external providers when required
- GPs can more easily make referrals to allied health professionals
- decreased costs associated with admission and funding assessments.
