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Business View Australia - June 2015 77
life and, when they can get up in
the morning, they feel more moti-
vated to take part in events and to
be of assistance to other people.
Pennwood Aged Care invests a lot
of money and time into staff train-
ing. Recently some key staff com-
pleted the mental health first aid
and dementia courses. Having the
right skills is important to support
care recipients who suffer from anx-
iety, dementia and memory loss.
New technology within the medical
sector has also helped to improve
the services offered and allows
staff to train and study on line.
Says Brown, “In the last two years
we’ve introduced Leecare electronic
care plans. Our industry is moving
towards electronic communica-
tion systems to improve services,
maintain privacy, and reduce our
footprint as we are planning to be
paperless. All our care plans are
stored in electronic systems to en-
able consistent high-quality care.”
The new Aged Care National Stan-
dards which concentrate on perfor-
mance indicators to manage quality
and standards are top of mind. The
three KPI’s that Pennwood is bench-
marking against are restraint, skin
integrity and weight loss associated
with good diet and hydration. There
is a trend within the industry that
these areas be closely monitored and
reported in a timely manner so that
quality standards can be maintained.
Clinical staff respond very quickly to
pressure area breakdown and ad-
dress areas of concern by assessing
wounds. These days hospitals also
have to report pressure sores. The
model comes from the UK and is all
about timely reporting. “That’s proba-
bly one of the biggest improvements
in our health care setting as we rarely
see pressure sores with improved
manual handling, wound care prod-
ucts, electronic beds to change po-
HEALTHCARE