If however, all goes to plan, and there has been no injury or loss of life to consume our thoughts we might just get to understand that the threat of disaster can be just a part of the rich tapestry of life. In the mid 1990’s the northern outskirts of Sydney were ravaged by the area’s worst ever bush fires. A flight over the northern beaches revealed thousands of hectares of scorched earth. During this bush fire disaster several aged care facilities had to evacuate their residents and the hospital I was managing at the time opened up two old wards to temporarily accommodate these people. I remember being terribly concerned that we were putting old folk into two disused wards and subjecting them to a clinical environment and even worse …..hospital food! What could we do to entertain them, how could we allay their fears of a foreign environment.

I remember plucking up the courage to go and see them and find out how they were coping with all the disruption and sub standard accommodation and services. When I arrived I found most to be laughing and smiling in the face of adversity ……..how brave I thought. When I started talking to them I began to learn some valuable lessons about being old or doing the same thing each day. These people were not frightened, they were excited. For the first time in their lives they had a helicopter ride from the ‘bush’ and landed on the helipad in the middle of what must have seemed like down town New York. They spoke of Mavis being manhandled by “two gorgeous young men in uniform” from the helipad to the reception room,  and of Fred comparing the ride to his war time experiences. You could have knocked me over with a feather when they started raving about the mixture of hospital food and party pies and cakes prepared by the volunteer kiosk …….”best feed ever lovey!” Later on we organised a wheelchair tour of the hospital and every department we visited gave a 2 minute talk on what they did. Each wheelchair had a little flag with the resident’s name.

Today, I chatted with the managers of some facilities that were hit by the Central Queensland and North Western NSW floods and whenever I asked how the poor residents coped with the upheaval the response was a gentle laugh followed by the comment “they thought they were on holiday, taking them home was tougher than the evacuation”. Let’s face it, how often do we put our residents in a bus or a helicopter and take them for a three hour trip and deposit them in “better than camping” accommodation where they get a bit of extra love and focussed attention.

In the next QPS Newsletter three QPS Benchmarking clients discuss how good disaster planning and loving staff helped to make evacuations more of a holiday than a disaster.

This very fit 60 year old, does 700 push ups plus ten sets of pull ups and dips 5 days a week. From the lower east side of Manhattan. Calisthenics has kept him looking young.

Over the past 11 years I have been working with healthcare organisations who benchmark their performance in order to learn from the best and to become the best. Many of these organisations have gone on to win industry awards and have experienced continued growth and success.

Fortunately I often get the opportunity to see some great initiatives in action, and now I want to share one of those with you.

The Event

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be able to represent QPS Benchmarking at SummitCare’s annual recognition event. While it would have been easy to be distracted by the calibre of guests in the room such as Dr June Heinrich and Dr Sue Macri, the day was all about recognising the great work done by SummitCare’s most exceptional employee’s.

The event which is in it’s 7th year is all about recognising and rewarding staff across the entire organisation including administration, clinical, maintenance, cleaning, catering and activities. Awards included: Major Years of Service, Academic, Managers Choice, Star Recognition Awards and the organisations two National Better Practice Awards.

During the event, it was amazing to see front-line staff become the stars of the show and receive awards for very real achievements.

So why is this so important?

Your Staff

Residential aged care staff are some of the hardest working, most compassionate and caring people I have come across in any industry. They have extremely challenging jobs and face a situation where the wider world will magnify and publish any story relating to a single negative event. On the other hand they are very rarely heralded for their everyday successes in caring for our elderly generation and ensuring they lead productive and positive lives in their later years. It was clear to see on the day that only positives could come out of an event where the staff were supported by the organisations owners, management, their peers, the community and most importantly the people they care for – the residents.

Your Organisation

It is no secret that the aged care industry faces major challenges in the areas of staff sourcing, staff retention, staff education and achieving an appropriate skill mix. Considering that the future will certainly bring further demand for quality staff from a supply that will at best, struggle to meet this demand. It should be very clear to see that besides being the right thing to do, recognising your employee’s contributions to your organisation can also help address a number of human resources issues that plague many organisations in the industry.

If you can create an environment where people are happy in their jobs, then not only will you retain the majority of your workforce, but you will also be more likely to attract valuable employee’s to your organisation.

The negative impacts an unhappy workforce can have on your organisation are numerous and could cover an entire article themselves – just think about what a high turnover of staff can do to your organisation: low morale, expensive agency staff, loss of knowledge and skills etc. In other words an unhappy workforce can and will negatively impact on everything from the satisfaction of your residents and families, through to your profit levels and financial viability.

You Can Learn

Many organisations can learn very important lessons from SummitCare’s approach to staff recognition. While many would argue that this all seems like common sense, the difference is that SummitCare actually put the time and effort into doing this each and every year and they really do mean it. They have developed a system of recognition that is equally powerful for both the organisation and the employee and it is obviously paying dividends when you consider that as a team they have won a prestigious Australian Business Excellence Award (Silver Award Winners 2009).

I will leave you with a comment made to me at a recent conference which I believe to be true of any good person in any industry. I do however believe that residential aged care organisations who adopt this belief will be much more likely to succeed now and in the marketplace of the future:

“Good staff in the aged care industry are like diamonds, they are extremely valuable and will become more valuable the longer you keep them”.

It is little wonder that a decade ago, a good friend of mine would give her children Christmas presents on the condition that there was never to be a place in an aged care facility for her. This condition of future “mummy care” was written on the poor kid’s Christmas cards, for we are talking about a lawyer here. “Find me a rocking chair on a sunny porch and if I drop off, I drop off ….” she would say.

I wonder if my friend would still say the same thing now. Addicted to espresso coffee she can now get it at the right aged care places. Facilities are not so paternalistic as to deny her the end of day glass of red wine or two. At the right place she can continue receiving her weekly remedial massages, possibly at a cheaper price than the Double Bay Beauty and Therapy Day Spa. Her guilt ridden children may even be so brave as to suggest that their mum could easily find a place with her own room and a porch positioned for the morning sun. Rock away mum, we still love you and we will communicate on Facebook with you every minute of the day, because you also have internet access.

There is a buzz of excitement around the progressive aged care facilities these days and a glance at the QPS Benchmarking Newsletter articles such “Anyone for Coffee” or “Ballroom Blitz” might just show how ‘the times are a changin’. We remember that Bob Dylan song don’t we fellow baby boomers? Or is it still true that if we can remember the sixties, we did not live in them.

This story is a true account as told to QPS Benchmarking.

Bill lives on the coast of NSW. A year ago his mother fell over at home and needed to be hospitalised. With her physical condition being complicated by the onset of dementia, Bill’s mother was transferred to a local facility that provided both high and low care. The process of having his mother put in aged care was hard enough but it was made worse by the fact that Bill could not feel comfortable with the care being provided. Essentially Bill was concerned about a lack of communication and the visibility of care provided. He felt that his mother was being left alone far too often and there seemed to be confusion about his mother’s rather heavy medication regime. On top of this Bill felt he could not get a consistent answer on his mother’s high or low care status and was being told he had to pay a bond to secure his mother’s place in the facility and but that eventually she would be transferred to high care.

Bill was then lucky enough to talk to someone with experience in aged care and found that choice was an important thing when placing someone into care. He was advised that he should go and visit a few other facilities even if it meant travelling a few extra kilometres to get there.

This was an important piece of information for Bill as he was not really aware that he had a choice in the matter. He had thought that once his mother had been transferred from hospital to an aged care facility she would have to stay there as he was told that vacancies are hard to find, and in any event, if he did decide to move his mother to another facility how could he be confident it would be better, maybe it would be worse.

A quick ring around some other recommended aged care clients in his local area resulted in a decision to visit two of them. His first impressions were very positive and he commented on how the information provided to him was more substantial and much clearer compared to the first facility. More importantly, he observed a higher level of staff interaction with the residents during his visits. He was also unequivocally assured on his first visit to the facility that his mother was a high care resident and no bond would be required.

Bill decided to take up a vacancy at one of the facilities. Bill has not any stage regretted the decision. He has found that in comparison with the first facility his mother was admitted to, the second facility:

• has set up excellent systems for communication and that all mishaps or incidents are reported to him almost instantly either by phone or text (if not serious);
• did not require a bond and therefore it was not necessary to sell the family home;
• when he visits his mother, staff are always visibly active with the residents and are often seen to warmly cuddle the residents and appear to be enjoying their work and this was in stark contrast with the first facility;
• the employment of a nurse practitioner has reduced the number of times his mother has been transferred to hospital;
• an active and well communicated review of the medications regime has seen the cost of drugs reduced by over 50% and his mother appears happier and certainly more lucid;
• the staff appear very focused on the improvement opportunities provided by any mishaps or incidents and often discuss these with him; and
• Bill has been provided with a automatic key entry system that enables him to get through the locked front doors 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.

We were very pleased to know that the second home that Bill settled his mother into is a long term client of QPS Benchmarking.

(This is a true and recent experience but for confidentiality reasons the real name of Bill and the facilities concerned has been withheld.)