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NEWS RELEASE:
Partnering Technologies Addresses Critical Need for Residential Aged Care Costing Studies
20 March 2023- Adelaide, SA
The long term / aged care setting, however, has suffered from a lack of electronically captured activity data, appropriate Cost Drivers and, whilst interventions are recorded in Resident notes and on Care Plans, this information is not available electronically
A new partnership between Contact Harald and PowerHealth is allowing the long term/ aged care setting to make use of the latest technology to understand true costs by resident, allowing accurate reviews, scenario planning and forecasting against future funding models.
Contact Harald makes use of wearable Bluetooth cards and bracelets to automatically capture care time. The Bluetooth cards are similar to those worn by staff already while resident cards or bracelets are placed on their person or care equipment. Cards are registered using the location of the Resident or the staff Role. Neither the staff member nor residents participating in the studies are individually identifiable from the data the system collects.
PowerHealth has created an automated interface with their Activity Based Costing System, PowerPerformance Manager (PPM) and the resulting data from Contact Harald, so that aged care organisations now have the ability to truly understand service delivery costs.
Nick O’Halloran, Chief Financial Officer, Contact Harald, said “Previous Resident Level Costing (RLC) studies have relied on manual time and motion studies, which are both expensive and prone to user error. Our application automates the collection of the data required for costing studies, making the process as inexpensive and as frictionless as possible, which is critical for the ongoing sustainability of the industry. Our joint technology renders this achievable through increased ease of use and automated data capture of resident interventions”.
Brett Michael, Director, PowerHealth, “The project has provided a fantastic source of information, which will lead to informed decision making. By integrating the information captured through the Contact Harald technology with our Activity Based Costing System, PowerPerformance Manager, we have been able to calculate bottom-up costing and drill into specific areas including costs by facility, classification, resident and by component of cost, creating the confidence to make informed data driven decisions’.
This technology will allow care facilities to calculate a cost per day per aged care resident to compare against the AN-ACC funding model.
"The application of this technology with PPM means that facilities can now afford to clearly understand their cost structures and ensure that they are staying efficient in the face of changing funding approaches in the sector ” Mr Michael said.
Contact our team if you would like more information.
