A Perfect Storm for Australian Aged Care

• Complex Environment: 1 million recipients of 5232 aged care services from approximately 2000 providers
• Heterogenous mixture of service providers: Made up of religious groups, local government, community based groups, state governments, charitable organisations and private incorporated bodies with 65% not for profit and 64% single facility operators.
• Skill shortages: Aging population with ever more complex needs leading to skill shortages
• Negative Media Publicity: Causing increased regulations such as the new aged care quality standards and a royal commission.
• New User Pays System: As consumers are required to pay more, they will become more demanding about the type and standard of care they receive

Increasing Accountability for Aged Care Boards

“What was wrong with the corporate culture– an obsession with cost cutting, which forgets residents are human beings.”

Increasing accountability for Aged Care Boards will mean they need to be sufficiently skilled and engaged to monitor and mentor the management of their aged care providers in a finely tuned balancing act between maximising the delivery of dignity and choice to the consumers, minimising the impact on the profitability to the owners and ensuring compliance with increasingly onerous regulation.

Evaluating the Board’s Performance will be needed to build an Effective Board

“Examine directors’ confidence in the integrity of the enterprise, the quality of the discussions at the board meetings, the credibility of reports, the use of constructive professional conflict, the level of interpersonal cohesion, and the degree of knowledge. In evaluating individuals, go beyond reputations, résumés, and skills to look at initiative, roles and participation in discussions, and energy levels.”

“Behavioural psychologists and organisational learning experts agree that people and organizations cannot learn without feedback. No matter how good a board is, it’s bound to get better if it’s reviewed intelligently.”

What makes Great Boards Great by Professor Jeffrey A Sonnenfeld HBR Sept 2002