The Australian Department of Health and Aged Care has published a five-year strategy to implement reforms to aged care.
In the Aged Care Data and Digital Strategy, the government envisions an aged care system that provides “the highest quality, age-centred care, while driving a sustainable and productive care and support economy through data and digital innovation”.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT
To achieve its vision, the strategy identified four specific outcomes, two of which relate to sharing and using data safely and having the data and digital foundations that underpin a standards-based aged care system. Such outcomes emphasize improving security and access control; optimizing data collection and operate; building data and digital maturity; and encouraging innovation.
The strategy is accompanied by an action plan setting out specific projects and activities to achieve each identified objective.
Among the government’s plans is to implement a framework for managing aged care data and an interoperability and reference architecture. It also plans to introduce virtual nursing care in aged care, pilot AI technologies and conduct trials of virtual reality technologies.
In the meantime, work has begun on the implementation of the LiveUp vigorous ageing tool and the KeepAble digital resource platform; the My Aged Care free information service has been enhanced; My Aged Care has been integrated with My Health Record; and clinical information system standards for aged care have been developed.
The National Minimum Data Set for Aged Care, the National Aged Care Data Resource and electronic prescribing are also part of this plan.
BROADER CONTEXT
In its Intergenerational Report, the Australian government predicts that the number of seniors will more than double over the next four decades. This is prompting the aged care workforce to augment its capabilities, particularly through the adoption of data and digital technology, to meet the growing demand for services.
The Department of Health and Aged Care has announced that its latest strategy for reforming aged care is in line with its recently published ten-year plan Digital Health Blueprint and updated five-year National Digital Health Strategy. It also aligns with the National Care Economy and Support Strategy on using data and digital solutions to enable high-quality care and improve workforce productivity. All of these strategies, the department noted, share the common goal of “strengthening the continuum of care” by linking all data and digital systems more closely through the consistent adoption of data standards.