The government mandatory care minute standards are being introduced for residential aged care facilities as part of the AN-ACC funding model, in response to the 2021 final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. This article explains a solution to automate the challenge of how to capture and report the time spent with each resident
A Care Minute Reporting System can help residential aged care providers across the country comply with the new Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) care funding model that will replace the Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) from 1 October 2022.
eHomeCare, one of Australia’s leading Care Tech companies, showed today a solution for this challenge...
Consistent with the Royal Commission recommendations, from 1 October 2023, the initial care minute requirements will be set at a sector-wide average of 200 minutes per day, including a minimum of 40 minutes of registered nurse time. This will be based on care provided by registered nurses, enrolled nurses and personal care workers. Funding will be provided from 1 October 2022 (the commencement of AN-ACC) in recognition that it may take some time for providers to attract and retain staff. The Government’s policy is that, from October 2024, the care minute requirements will increase to a sector-wide average of 215 minutes per day, including a minimum of 44 minutes of registered nurse time.
The Government’s policy is that, from October 2024, the care minute requirements will increase to a sector-wide average of 215 minutes per day, including a minimum of 44 minutes of registered nurse time (see How do I calculate my care minutes targets for more details).
“The challenge for the aged care providers is how to capture and report the time spent with each resident without this becoming an administrative burden on their staff, taking them away from focusing on providing the best possible care for their residents”.
Real Time Location system
“In order to eliminate this burden, you can use a Care Minute Reporting System based on Real Time Location System (RTLS) technology. This system automatically captures every interaction between caregiver, registered nurses and resident* with detailed real-time reporting and alerts to ensure each resident receives the right amount of care minutes.
“These aggregated minutes, average per visit or amount of visits can then be viewed per period (day, week, month etc), and filtered by carer names, a shift, a role eg. Registered Nurse, case-mix classification, or location eg. room. The data can be integrated into an existing Care Delivery Management System, Business Intelligence (BI) or viewed through a reporting platform like Blue Bike’s “Sector First” portal.
Care Minute Reporting Portal
“Having this visibility will enable residential aged care providers to manage staffing levels against the case-mix classification to meet the new care minute requirement (targets) where they will receive equitable care funding that better matches resident funding with the costs of delivering care, enabling a more efficient, transparent and sustainable system”.
Resident/Care staff tracking
eHomeCare has been providing Real Time Location System (RTLS) technology to the aged care industry for several years for resident & staff tracking, elopement prevention, duress management, time recording, or contact tracing and this Automated Care Minute Reporting System will see a significant increase in the aged care providers adopting RTLS technology.
*) only if the resident is wearing a wristband/necklace or has their walker equipped with a tracking device. In case the resident can’t/doesn’t want to wear the small sensor, the Care minutes spent in a resident’s room could be reported on as an alternative.
Automate your collection of Care minutes
Contact us to assist you in complying to the care minute reporting requirements and ensure that you have the appropriate systems in place to access and provide quality data in your QFR, improve your star rating, enable Duress management, and more...