Healthcare Assignment: Growth of Australia’s Aged Care Industry
Question
Task:
Your Task:
Students are to write a 1500-word report on healthcare assignment that analyses an industry segment of the Australian Healthcare sector.
Assessment Description:
This assessment provides students with an opportunity to research and analyze a particular healthcare segment to gain an initial insight into the opportunities and challenges that currently exist for organisations that deliver healthcare services in Australia in that segment. Students will present that research and analysis in the form of a formal report which requires student to adhere to a report structure including an Executive Summary.
Students are to investigate an industry segment of the Australia healthcare sector and examine and evaluate its model of operations and growth over the last ten years.
Answer
Executive summary:As mentioned in the present healthcare assignment, aged care is the kind of service that assists older people in their own home or nursing home. These include daily living, medicines, accommodation as well as essential equipment, like ramps or walking frames etc. This government-funded service is always ready to help aged people who are unable to live on their own. This report reflects a detailed understanding of Australia's aged care industry. Also, all the discussions have been confirmed by statistical information. However, it is important to keep in mind that loved ones should never be deprived or neglected.
Introduction: The Australian aged care industry refers to an organization that provides services to the elderly aged 65 and over in Australia who are unable to live alone. They also serve Indigenous Australians over the age of 50. People are cared for by a variety of providers in the home as well as residential elderly care facilities.
In August, 2021 the Australian market size of aged care residential services is $24.7 billion (IBISWorld - Industry Market Research, Reports, and Statistics, 2021). The size of the aged care residential services market in Australia has increased by 5.1 per cent. The annual market size of aged care residential services in Australia increased by 1.6 per cent (2016-2021). Community care, home care, and residential care are the three main services provided under the Aged Care Act 1997 (Khadka et al., 2019). This report will elaborate on detailed information about the aged care industry in Australia. Competitors in the industry, business trends and ethical issues will also be discussed throughout the report.
Source: (Australia's aged care workforce - AIHW Gen, 2021)
Main Activities:
Group Exercise: Older people are kept healthy and in balance through exercises like Zumba and Yoga (Ellis, Ben-Moshe and Teshuva, 2017).
Walking Groups: Older people are trained to walk in a group to keep their health and mind active.
Gardening: Gardening practices keep them busy so they don't miss home.
Book clubs: Book clubs are arranged for those who love to read books.
Art practice: Many people have never been able to fulfil their desires due to their busy life, especially in the field of painting. They are given the opportunity to art through various workshops (Baker et al., 2017).
Trip: They pleasure the elderly through weekly or monthly trips. This is a very good initiative which is enough to make the minds of the elders better.
Competitive Landscape: Incorporating funds into a market-based system is outdated. Similar reforms have been introduced in the United Kingdom and New Zealand over the past decade. Significant effects of reform can be seen in the competitive landscape. With more than 50 per cent of the UK market share turning into profit from the nonprofit segment, New Zealand providers reported losses of up to 30 per cent for other new entrants as well as other providers. The market bulk of the aged care residential services industry in Australia has grown steadily compared to the social support sector and healthcare as a whole. Also, the government is focusing on keeping older Australians at home longer (van Hoof et al., 2017). It has started and as a result, many service providers are leaving the industry for new funds and entering other sectors which are reducing the number of these industries.
Competitors:
1. OzCare: OzCare is a large integrated organization within the regional Queensland environment that belongs to a business in the Catholic Church of Queensland. They provide services to over 21160 clients, 11 residential facilities and around 33000 workers they have employed across a leisure village.
OzCare assists clients from entry-level to a high-level residential care as a fully integrated provider focusing primarily on regional support. This provides much client attraction as well as opportunities for retention but also puts pressure on the organization to maintain a level of service to ensure retention.
OzCare facilitates the use of a mixed model of business, to factor into different funding models that stick up for the company.
2. Uniting Care Queensland: Uniting Care Queensland is a significantly larger multipurpose organization belonging to the Queensland environment. According to the annual report of 2018, four private hospitals have 17,000 employees; it also has a business of aged care named BlueCare, a provider which included 47 residential amenities, 3.3 million community care visits as well as 39 leisure villages in 2017.
Uniting Care is an organization that prioritizes the need for high care from the entry of ageing clients through the organization by providing a full circle. This allows Unit Care to retain more clients, but also puts pressure on the organization to ensure retention and maintain quality of service. It is an organization based on a mixed business model, underpinning the organization and external business locations by factoring into different funding models to generate additional non-externally funded revenue.
3. Anglicare: Anglicare Southern Queensland is a well-known multipurpose aged care service provider which is situated in the Queensland environment. It is stated in their annual report of 2018 that they have 2800 staff providing services across 8 residential facilities along with 1.3 community care visits.
At Anglicare, an elderly person is provided with services that are essential to him or her, with a high level of care from the entry-level. Anglicare adopts an activity-based business model, factoring into the company's underpin funding models.
Industry trends:
Fund stability- About 3.1 billion dollars has been spent from the Aged Care Funding since the beginning of 2018-19 (Authority A.C.F, 2020), or will be spent that year. This money has been spent by the government and the consolidation of this fund according to the adequate budget for the aged. To help consumers, the government introduced a Consumer Direct Care (CDC) system, to provide all kinds of services to the consumers sitting at home.
CDC- It is a service through which consumers can choose the care and service of their choice at home and they will be able to select the service provider and the delivery time on their own (Day et al., 2017). It is a successful service because it is as low cost as it is customer-friendly. The government has implemented this system very well and the people have accepted it for its benefit.
Technology- Aged care providers use a variety of technologies to maintain the stability of their operations and to provide better services to the consumers (Harrison et al., 2019). With the help of technology people can become dependent, privacy and safety can be maintained and work pressure can be reduced. The more market based this service is, the more technology it will have to use.
Accountability- Service providers have previously been criticized for their accountability, so this system has been improved. The criterion for change in this system is the invention of SACQF, the Single Aged Care Quality Framework, which was first launched in 2019 (Detering et al., 2019). Accountability has improved a lot through this implementation. The new standards replace the systems of care for the aged and bring the values of safety and quality to full coverage in service settings.
Workforce- The aged care system is growing by leaps and bounds, and the nature, scale and workforce of its services are changing. According to the data obtained in 2016, 4,34,443 people are directly associated with aged care service and 60 per cent are employed in residential care. More workforce will be added to hire suitably skilled staff.
Source: (Australia's aged care workforce - AIHW Gen, 2021)
Ethical issues: Care for the aged in some cases also reflects healthcare. Some special aspects of healthcare such as seeing the benefits of the patient, protecting them from any harm, also apply in Aged Care. Although there are some basic differences between the two cases. These measures are usually applied with the patient in mind, in which case the patient has to make all the decisions alone. In some cases, his family intervenes for the improvement of the patient, but the focus is on the patient only.
The main complication seen in the care of the aged is the mistreatment or neglect of the elderly due to various circumstances or natural causes (Myhre et al., 2020). Care for the elderly members in the family will not solve the problem, besides this, the family members need to behave well. Of course, this effort should be based on a mandatory framework, and practice should be taken from the Aged Care staff if necessary. This arrangement promotes a competitive and empathetic development of moral obligation for caregivers in the care of the aged. Providers have to face an ethical dilemma to balance the needs of the people, expectations towards the service, etc. in line with the ever-increasing budget. Providers are facing ethical problems as a result of reduced government allocations for CDC affiliation and funding (Laragy and Vasiliadis, 2020). Therefore, keeping in mind the budget, they have to accept some mandatory obligations in the case of service providers.
Service within the country that is so large and has gained so much traction throughout the country is bound to collapse if it does not receive adequate funding. In that case, the invention of CDC in 2017 will allow providers to take advantage of "redistribute" from clients, but it is one-time. Somehow, they will not be able to collect money from the clients again for more or less funds.
Conclusion: This report typically describes the current and future healthcare of aged people in Australia. The ageing population is increasing in Australia due to migration, huge use of technology, low fertility etc. This is now a problem for the government to provide less aid and increase demand. Yet care insurance systems, commercial insurance systems are coming forward for financial assistance. However, the aged care system is moving forward with some financial, political and social problems. The full support of the Australian Government is needed to make this system more efficient and effective. With the help of the government, just as there will be a financial improvement, there will also be the improvement of service provider systems and care services.
Reference:
Authority, A.C.F., 2020. Eighth report on the funding and financing of the aged care industry. Canberra: Aged Care Financing Authority. https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/06/eighth-report-on-the-funding-and-financing-of-the-aged-care-industry-may-2020.pdf
Baker, J.R., Webster, L., Lynn, N., Rogers, J. and Belcher, J., 2017. Intergenerational programs may be especially engaging for aged care residents with cognitive impairment: findings from the Avondale intergenerational design challenge. American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease & Other Dementias®, 32(4), pp.213-221. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1533317517703477
Day, J., Taylor, A.C.T., Summons, P., Van Der Riet, P., Hunter, S., Maguire, J., Dilworth, S., Bellchambers, H., Jeong, S., Haydon, G. and Harris, M., 2017. Home care packages: insights into the experiences of older people leading up to the introduction of consumer-directed care in Australia. Australian journal of primary health, 23(2), pp.162-169.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jane-Maguire-2/publication/325739559_Experiences_of_older_people_following_the_introduction_of_consumer-directed_care_to_home_care_packages_A_qualitative_descriptive_study/links/5d8aa305299bf10cff0b270a/ Experiences-of-older-people-following-the-introduction-of-consumer-directed-care-to-home-care -packages-A-qualitative-descriptive-study.pdf
Detering, K.M., Buck, K., Ruseckaite, R., Kelly, H., Sellars, M., Sinclair, C., Clayton, J.M. and Nolte, L., 2019. Prevalence and correlates of advance care directives among older Australians accessing health and residential aged care services: multicentre audit study. BMJ open, 9(1), p.e025255. https://scholar.google.com/scholaroutput=instlink&q=info:t5zr4v5UHWoJ:scholar.google.com/ &hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2017&scillfp=7271514040463013991&oi=lle
Ellis, J.M., BenMoshe, R. and Teshuva, K., 2017. Laughter yoga activities for older people living in residential aged care homes: A feasibility study. Australasian journal on ageing, 36(3), pp.E28-E31.http://www.thehappydemic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Ellis_et_al-2017-Australasian_Journal_on_Ageing.pdf
Gen-agedcaredata.gov.au. 2021. Australia's aged care workforce - AIHW Gen. [online] Available at:
Ibisworld.com. 2021. IBISWorld - Industry Market Research, Reports, and Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com/au/market-size/aged-care-residential-services [Accessed 3 December 2021]. Khadka, J., Lang, C., Ratcliffe, J., Corlis, M., Wesselingh, S., Whitehead, C. and Inacio, M., 2019. Trends in the utilisation of aged care services in Australia, 2008–2016. BMC geriatrics, 19(1), pp.1-9. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12877-019-1209-9
Laragy, C. and Vasiliadis, S.D., 2020. Consumer expectations of selfmanaging aged home care packages in Australia. Health & Social Care in the Community, 28(6), pp.2362-2373. https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/275934/10.1111-hsc.13057.pdfsequence=1&isAllowed=y Myhre, J., Saga, S., Malmedal, W., Ostaszkiewicz, J. and Nakrem, S., 2020. Elder abuse and neglect: an overlooked patient safety issue. A focus group study of nursing home leaders’ perceptions of elder abuse and neglect. BMC health services research, 20(1), pp.1-14. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-020-5047-4 van Hoof, J., Schellen, L., Soebarto, V., Wong, J.K.W. and Kazak, J.K., 2017. Ten questions concerning thermal comfort and ageing. Building and Environment, 120, pp.123-133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2017.05.008
