Actively improving Quality of Life and the experience of care
What does good care look like? How do you measure the experience of care?
The Innovation Hub takes the approach that Quality of Life is a central measure of the experience of care and the quality of care. An ideal outcome is that people have a better experience in care that they otherwise would.
Working with Deakin University and the Australian Centre for Quality of Life the Innovation Hub conducted the first ever study of Quality of Life Outcomes in Residential Aged Care in Australia in 2017. Developing a Quality of Life improvement framework to support he focus on what is most important to people receiving care and their enjoyment of life.
The results in 2017 and 2020 showed that people receiving care at the participating Innovation Hub Aged Care Home experienced a better quality of life than Aged Matched Peers in the general Australian Community (ie they were enjoying life more).
Building on this work in 2021 the Innovation Hub offered support to Professor Julie Ratcliff of the Caring Futures Institute in the development of co-designed tools to measure quality of life of older Australian in care setting. The work includes the new Qol-ACC tool, and work refining the cognition threshold for use of self assessed Quality of Life tools. This tool has become a National Quality Indicator for the Sector.
Work continues to develop accessible Quality of Life self assessment tools to help people experiencing cognitive impairment to express what’s important to them.
