Quality Improvement - Home Care
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Quality Improvement

There are various ways of undertaking quality improvement and this is already a key focus for Australian home care services. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission ensures that providers have a written plan for continuous improvement and how this assists the provider to meet their obligations to clients and families. The ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’ cycle is explained in full in the Linkages Toolkit. In summary, there are four steps:

  1. Plan - Identifying and Preparing
  2. Do - Implementing
  3. Check - Assessing and Revising
  4. Act - Sustaining.

Audit Tools

To assist with the ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’ cycle, provided below are audit tools that can be completed to prioritise areas for quality improvement:

  1. ELDAC Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care Organisational Audit
  2. ELDAC After Death Audit
  3. Advance Care Planning Continuous Quality Improvement Audit Tool.
ELDAC Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care Organisational Audit

This interactive (fillable) pdf can be completed online, downloaded and printed for your organisation’s records. The audit should be completed by a staff member who has clinical and organisational knowledge of the palliative care and advance care planning processes and care provided in the service. In some instances, consultation with other staff may be required to complete the audit. Once completed bring the audit to the working group to identify areas for quality improvement. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has a template that can be used to plan continuous improvement activities. The quality improvement plan should be reviewed at every working group meeting.

It is recommended that the organisational audit be completed at least yearly and the results used as part of your organisation’s accreditation documents. Provide a date for when the audit was completed and a date for future review.

The ELDAC Organisational Audit has been revised to address the learnings from Phase 1 of ELDAC and to align with the Aged Care Quality Standards. Version 2 is available below.

>> Download the updated Version 2 ELDAC Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care Organisational Audit (848kb pdf)

ELDAC After Death Audit

This interactive (fillable) audit provides more detail on care provided to individual clients and families. It is recommended that a baseline audit be completed for either the most recent five to ten deaths or for a certain timeframe (e.g. all deaths that occurred over the previous 3-month period).

Following the initial audit using the ELDAC Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care Organisational Audit, it is recommended that the ELDAC After Death Audit is completed for every client who dies, and a formal review of deaths is conducted at a working group every 3 months.

The ELDAC After Death Audit has been updated and the new Version 2 is available below. The audit can be completed online, downloaded and printed for your organisation's records. The content has been streamlined and reflects the feedback received from Phase 1 of ELDAC.

>> Download the updated Version 2 ELDAC After Death Audit (636kb pdf)

Advance Care Planning Continuous Quality Improvement

The Advance Care Planning Improvement (ACPI) Toolkit provides resources to support health and aged care services with the uptake of advance care planning at the organisational level, performance monitoring, and quality improvement.