Concurrent Sessions – Standards… Bruckard & McKenna, Chen

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Concurrent Sessions – Standards… Bruckard & McKenna, Chen

SKU: ACSA2019-SESSION27 Category:

Description

Professional Care Workers: Investing in our most valuable assets

Mrs Connie Bruckard (Anglicare Tasmania Inc , Hobart, Australia)
Mrs Janis McKenna (Elm Consulting Australia, Hobart, Australia)

Abstract:

Our care workers are our greatest assets and ambassadors. The way they deliver care and services play a critical role in meeting changing regulatory and consumer expectations. We expect so much from them, yet the workforce is large, fragmented, underpaid, and often with limited qualifications and opportunities for further development. It’s time we commit to our people by investing properly in their success.

Elm Consulting Australia, in partnership with Anglicare Tasmania Inc., developed a practical, professional development program for home care workers that incorporates the new aged care standards and best practice research in exceptional customer experience, consumer-centricity, greater choice and wellness and reablement. The program is based on a Practice Framework with six focus areas: Values; Dignity and Respect; Partnership in Care; Exceptional Customer Experience; Wellbeing and Reablement; Professionalism and Team Work. Each focus area provides digestible explanations, practice statements, example behaviours (written in the words of aged care workers), case studies and reflective questions. The framework is delivered through a series of interactive workshops.

The program can increase the confidence, skills, knowledge and attitudes of care workers in a way that is aligned to their personal values, meets regulatory standards and best practice, and emphasises the importance of their role as aged care professionals. The wellness of workers is enhanced, and they are likely to express genuine enjoyment for the job. For the organisation, the program can lead to higher attraction and retention rates, and more loyal, satisfied customers.

Biographies:

Connie Bruckard is General Manager of Aged and Home-Based Care Service with Anglicare Tasmania. She holds a Master of Business Administration from University of Tasmania, a Master of Health and Human Service Management from Deakin University and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Connie has 35 years’ experience working in the healthcare, aged and community sectors and is know for her strong strategic leadership, business acumen and management skills. She is a highly committed, people focused, and values driven professional with the capacity to analyse organisational strengths and drive change to achieve sustainable, appropriate outcomes.

Connie is a respected thought leader with a commitment to championing a organisation’s vision, mission and values with strong stakeholder focus and a commitment to meeting and exceeding client expectations in the delivery of high-quality services, in tandem, with performance and expectation monitoring.

Janis McKenna is founder and principal consultant of Elm Consulting Australia, a management consultancy partnering with the aged and community sectors to establish new governance structures, build strategies and capabilities that open new avenues for growth. Elm transforms organisations while staying true to their values and culture.

Her business interests include part ownership of the Nyaho Medical Centre, the first private hospital in Accra Ghana, whose client base include, diplomatic missions, and large multinational corporations including Unilever, Nestle, Vodaphone, Barclays Bank and NGO’s including World Vision and Oxfam. She is a MBA and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
As a highly respected advocate Janis has provided expert advice to two Tasmanian Premiers, Ministers of Health and Human Services (both Australian Commonwealth and Tasmanian State) and is a past Chairman of the Tasmanian Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs and a member of the Premiers Disability Advisory Council and Premiers National Disability Insurance Scheme taskforce.

In 2009 Janis was recognized by the Australian business community for her leadership winning the prestigious Telstra Business Women’s Award in the Tasmanian Government and Community Category and the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Business Leader of the Year Award. She is passionate about developing people, particularly frontline team members.

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How to implement an antibiotic stewardship program

Caroline Chen (National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship, Melbourne, Australia)

Antibiotics are amongst the most frequently prescribed medications in Australian aged care homes. The most recent Aged Care National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey found the prevalence of residents prescribed at least one antimicrobial was 9.9%. If all topical antimicrobials were excluded, the prevalence was 6.7%.

Antibiotic stewardship refers to a set of actions designed to reduce adverse events associated with antibiotic use. These adverse events can be especially significant for residents receiving care in aged care homes and include hypersensitivity reactions, drug toxicity, drug interactions and colonisation and/or infection with antibiotic resistant pathogens. For this reason, the new Aged Care Quality Standards aiming to promote optimal clinical care and reduce any adverse events require all Australian aged care homes to demonstrate implementation of an antibiotic stewardship program.

There is no single template for an antibiotic stewardship program in an Australian aged care home. The complexity of decision making surrounding antibiotic use and the variability in the size and type of these homes requires flexibility in implementation. That said, there are core elements (leadership commitment, accountability, drug expertise, action, tracking, reporting and education) that should be considered.

This workshop relates to the Summits’ sub-theme ‘Performance” and ‘Meeting the standards’. Examples of how the core elements and recommended strategies of an antibiotic stewardship program can be easily applied in different Australian aged care homes will be provided. All administrative and clinical participants will be encouraged to implement at least two strategies to start with and once these are established to include new strategies.

Biography:

Caroline Chen is an antimicrobial pharmacist at the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship, and has previously held roles as the infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship pharmacists at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She lead the establishment of the National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS) program and currently works in developing electronic decision support programs to support antimicrobial stewardship in hospitals.

Additional information

Format

MP3 AUDIO, MP4 VIDEO