Dear Key Stakeholder,

Key Stakeholder Update: Company Re-Structure

As you may know, “Care Assess” has been selected to be a part of the Australian Government’s new Aged Care Gateway Programme, My Aged Care (commencing 1 July 2015). My Aged Care provides the entry gateway for clients accessing home care and support (aged care) services, funded by the Australian Government.

Because of this, we need to make a change to our company’s structure in order to uphold the Department’s requirements of My Aged Care Regional Assessment Service providers.

We need to separate “Care Assess” from the grant funded arm of our company, which currently also provides home care and support (aged care) services, funded by the Australian Government; this will ensure that our Assessment Services operate independently, without bias or conflict of interest.

New names and more!

We are today beginning an exciting company re-structure with a new operational model to separate our assessment services from the service delivery side of our organisation!

To highlight this change in structure, we will begin using three separate trading names and brands!

These new names will distinguish the structural and functional separation between our assessment services and our service delivery.

This change as a company is a functional separation as well as a structural one; these separate divisions now have separate (distinct) staff, roles and locations.

Structurally, this organisational model can be understood as ‘one company with two arms, separated by a central body.’

“Care Assess” – Assessment & Care Coordination

“Care Assess” is now the separate, privately-contracted division of Care Assessment Consultants Pty Ltd, providing an independent assessment agency approach to the delivery of health, personnel and assessment, as well as care and coordination services across Tasmania, under fee-for-service (use pays) arrangements.

Therefore, if we broker services under the “Care Assess” name, they will be privately contracted services, separate to our grant funded / subsidised home care and support programs.

“Care Consultancy” – Corporate Support & Services

In order to ensure true separation, a new central business unit has been established to manage the corporate and support functions of the company. This separate division trades as “Care Consultancy”.

Care Consultancy will not only operate the central management and administrative functions of the company for our Care Assess and Care Forward businesses.

Care Consultancy will also offer its key resources and assets to provide corporate support and services to external organisations – in order to help other small to medium businesses improve, grow, and increase in efficiency and effectiveness.

Through the provision of our key personnel, human resources, facilities, products and resources, Care Consultancy will leverage our significant experience, skills, systems, processes and tools to serve and benefit other like-minded organisations and individuals.

“Care Forward” – Home Care & Support

From 1 July 2015, our home care and support services will come under a new name, “Care Forward.”

Care Forward is now the separate trading division that will provide service delivery for our grant funded programs including Home Support services and Home Care Packages.

Care Forward provides and delivers services independently of Care Assess.

More information

For more information about Care Assess, Care Consultancy and Care Forward please visit on our new websites!

• www.careassess.com.au
• www.careconsultancy.com.au
• www.careforward.com.au

Please forward the news!

Can you please forward this news within your organisation to relevant staff who will be affected by this change?

Once again, thank you for your engagement; it is a privilege and an honour to be working with you, for you!

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Care Assessment Consultants has today written to Aged & Community Services Tasmania Members and HACC Forum Members in each of Tasmania’s three regions to provide an update regarding Care Assess’ Establishment Plan and activities undertaken to separate the Assessment Services from its aged care service delivery programs, to ensure both functions are undertaken appropriately in line with the Department’s requirements.

Summary of the letter:

• Care Assessment Consultants has implemented a “Policy of Separation” between the provision of RAS Assessment Services and aged care related Service Delivery, including Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) services, to ensure structural and functional separation and prevent any likely, perceived or actual conflicts of interest.
• Strategies to ensure structural and functional separation include separate (distinct) staff, separate roles and organisational structures, separate locations and offices where possible, strict application of access controls and well defined procedures to prevent inappropriate communication and referrals between these two separate arms of the company.
• In addition to the structural and functional separation, a new model of operations has been implemented to create a brand separation within Care Assessment Consultants (the company) – between the trading names, “Care Assess”, which will deliver RAS Assessments, and “Care Forward”, a separate trading name and brand, which will deliver CHSP services.

Further details including quality assurance and feedback mechanisms are provided in the full letter, which is attached for your information:

•  2015.06.16 Care Assess RAS Establishment Update (Separation of Services) – ACST

As always, we look forward to hearing any feedback you have!

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• Care Assess – PAP Program Evaluation Final Report – 20 February 2015

Some of the key findings of the evaluation include:

• Client satisfaction was extremely high with 98% of clients being satisfied with the support they received and 64% achieving their program goals; i.e. achieving the same level of independence they had prior to hospitalisation as assessed by Care Assess Service Coordinators;

• The majority of Discharge Planners (77%), ‘Agreed’ or ‘Strongly Agreed’ that the PAP program successfully reduced unnecessary patient time in hospital; and

• Only 5% of clients were referred for ongoing services at the completion of the program due to client goals not being attained, demonstrating the effectiveness of Service Coordinator’s care management in adjusting support throughout the intervention period in line with the client’s improved function.

Further findings, including identified areas for future improvement of this crucial Home and Community Care (HACC) Program, are highlighted in the report!

Background

Care Assess’ HACC Post Acute Packages (PAP) program aims to provide short term packages of support and care in the home for clients who have suffered an acute episode. These packages are time limited and more intensive than basic home support provided by mainstream HACC services. They help support elderly clients transition from a period of hospitalisation to living back in the community, enabling them to recover to their pre-acute level of independent functioning. This is achieved through the coordination of additional home support services such as personal care and domestic assistance, and through monitoring and review of client progress and service delivery.

Thank you

Care Assess wishes to thank all of our referrers and clients who have used or received the services of the HACC Post Acute Package (PAP) program over the last 10 years; thank you for the privilege of working with you, for you.

Care Assess wishes to particularly thank our dedicated staff; each of the many Service Coordinators and other support staff who have made the PAP program happen since 2004.

Care Assess also thanks all of our service providers across Tasmania who have worked with us in delivering home support for our clients in this program. Care Assess’ business model is distinctive in completely separating the assessment/coordination function provided by our staff from direct support service delivery, such as personal care and domestic assistance, provided by the staff of other organisations subcontracted to Care Assess. Thank you to the many organisations and support workers who provided services on our behalf to HACC clients in this program across Tasmania.

Care Assess wishes to acknowledge Silver Chain Group whose Personal Enablement Program (PEP) demonstrated the strategic benefit of short term enablement support programs within the context of the HACC program in Australia. Additionally, Care Assess thanks Silver Chain Group for the input they provided in preparing this evaluation report.

Finally, Care Assess owes a debt of gratitude to Tasmania’s Department of Health and Human Services who prior to 2004 first developed and operated their “HACC Packages” program to serve our local hospital and home support system. Thank you for the funding and other support received by the Department since that time, when Care Assess first developed and began managing the PAP program, which has now for a decade provided the benefits demonstrated in this Report both to our local health system and Tasmania’s home support system.

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Minister Fifield announced on 18th December 2014 that the Government will provide two years of funding to service providers like Care Assess with contracts under existing programs that will form the CHSP.

This will provide a degree of continuity and certainty for us and other providers, along with our clients!

The introduction of the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) is one of the changes the Australian Government is making to help older people to stay independent and in their homes and communities for longer

From 1 July 2015 four existing programmes will be consolidated into the CHSP, the:

• Commonwealth Home and Community Care (HACC) Program;
• National Respite for Carers Program (NRCP);
• Day Therapy Centres (DTC) Program; and
• the Assistance with Care and Housing for the Aged (ACHA) Program.

The new CHSP will build on the strengths of the programs it replaces and will continue to support around 550,000 older people and their carers, every year. Importantly, people receiving services under the existing programs will continue to receive the same level of support now and when the CHSP begins. CHSP funding will be around $1.7 billion in 2015-16, which will continue to grow over the coming years, resulting in more services for more people

The CHSP will be the entry level of Australia’s aged care system for older people who need assistance with daily living to remain living independently at home. Carers of these clients will also benefit from services provided through the CHSP

From 1 July 2015, older people and carers seeking assistance will benefit from a single entry point for services through My Aged Care, and a standardised national assessment process delivered through the My Aged Care Regional Assessment Service

Upcoming consultation

The Department will release the draft national CHSP fees policy and the draft Programme Manual in early 2015. Care Assess’ Senior Management Team will be reading them very carefully, seeking your input, and providing feedback to the Department before they are finalised.

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Changes to My Aged Care in 2015

My Aged Care services will be expanded in 2015 to make it easier for older people, their families, and carers to navigate the aged care system. These expanded services include:

• a nationally consistent screening and assessment process;
• a client record to allow client information to be appropriately shared with assessors and service providers;
• an enhanced service finder;
• electronic referrals managed via the My Aged Care online portals; and
• service providers being able to self-manage their data using the portal.

These new services represent significant changes to the sector. The expanded services for My Aged Care go live in July 2015.

The Department will continue to assist the sector in the transition to the new system.

2015 presents a great opportunity on the road to improved information and services for older Australians and their families.

The Department of Social Services has thanked us for our strong collaboration in 2014 and are looking forward to our continued engagement in 2015.

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Why Choose an Independent Coordinator?

1. An independent care coordinator will improve your quality of care.

Independent care coordination ensures better quality, client-directed care, for care-recipients and their carers at home.

It does this by improving:

• Assessment and planning, identifying needs comprehensively/broadly to include client desires and goals, in order to optimize both care-recipient’s outcomes and carer’s support

• Quality control, providing:
  • maximum level of choice for clients, with all direct-care services brokered without bias/conflict,
  • flexibility/adaptability of services, individually tailored to clients’ needs/desires/goals,

• Coordination of care, increasing access to planned supports

• Care-management, provided by qualified/expert health professionals (Registered Nurse or equivalent Allied-Health Professional),
  • utilising evidence-based clinical practice
  • independent, professional assessment regarding levels of  needs

• Value-for-money, based on:
  • Affordability from significant organisational scale-of-economy
  • Increased accountability/transparency over service usage
  • Broader/comprehensive resourcing of care, providing added services via our extensive referral network/linkages (including primary, allied health, and community providers)

• Enablement, through provision of:

• Health coaching
  • Extra support, information/education – also for carer-givers – to help clients maximise their abilities and health/wellbeing
  • Best prepare clients, and particularly carer-givers – to enable clients to best manage themselves, and support carers in their role in the clients’ ongoing/changing condition(s)

• Care coordination
  • Coordination of shared care through better informing and collaborating with all other health professionals and care providers necessary to optimise outcomes

2. An independent care coordinator will improve your value for money.

Independent care coordination ensures better ability to optimise all relevant variables and priorities that will benefit your care.

It does this by:

• Firstly, maximising the independent control/choice of clients and coordinators working together as a team.
• In turn, the client/coordinator team is empowered with the ability to optimise all relevant variables and priorities that will benefit clients:

• Access (availability and timeliness)
• Price (affordability and frequency)
• Quality (appropriateness and safety)

Literature research, client feedback and our practice experience, all demonstrate this model to effectively increase the ultimate value of services for clients.

If you would like these benefits for your care…

And to find out more about how you can access the services of one of our independent care coordinators,
Please contact Care Assess today!

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Keeping our Model – Care Assess

 “Are you going to keep your model?”

In view of the reform changes, particularly the upcoming introduction of the new Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP), Care Assess gets asked this question by those who know us well.

It’s a good question – after all, the Department of Social Services Key Directions for Commonwealth Home Support Programme Discussion Paper, released in May this year, has detailed a proposal to cease funding for HACC Service Group 2 service types; namely, assessment and client care coordination. These two service types are key to Care Assess’ current HACC operation with its existing programs and services.

However, the design of the new program is good news for Care Assess, not bad!

Mapping of current services into the CHSP

The proposed design of the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) will seek to link service delivery to six outcomes that each service is intended to contribute towards; one of these is “Increased Independence”.

The CHSP will seek to significantly change the way many basic HACC services are currently delivered – by adopting a reablement approach at the front-end of the system, with access via the My Aged Care Gateway (MAC).

Where clients are assessed as potentially being able to benefit from a short course of intensive supports or interventions, as part of a reablement approach recommended by a My Aged Care assessor, the MAC will refer clients to short term intensive reablement services within the CHSP, like Care Assess existing HACC Home Independence program, which provides goal-orientated reablement plans for up to 12 weeks, designed and managed by a multi-disciplinary team of health professionals.

Because these existing HACC services at Care Assess, including our Post Acute and Hospital Avoidance programs, are all managed by health professionals (nurses, exercise physiologists and occupational therapist), we’re able to apply to continue delivering current services in the CHSP within the “Increasing Independence” outcome, which will fund “nursing” and “allied health” services.

Keeping our Model

We are very excited that the aged care system, which will be in place from July 2015, will include a new Commonwealth Home Support Program (for low intensity basic support at home) that will feature a significant new element; in addition to ongoing services for clients and/or carers, the CHSP is being designed to include short-term restorative care programs and services – which will get system-wide access from the front-end of the system!

Care Assess will be able to retain our service model! Our service model is our point of difference; we provide independent care coordination through brokerage, giving our coordinators and clients the control to choose the direct-care provider(s) and service types that are best placed and suited to meet our consumers’ need, desires and goals.

Our clinical professionals specialise in coordination of care that is comprehensive, providing client-centred, quality management of care.

Care Assess employ a multi-disciplinary team of health professionals of over 60 staff, mostly senior RN (Level 2) clinical nurse coordinators, assessors and care-managers, enhanced by a contracted workforce of over 35 subcontracting organisations.

This service model allows Care Assess’ care coordinators to specialise in quality-management of subcontracted care, placing consumers themselves at the centre of our clinical governance and workforce management.

This service model increases the ultimate value of services for clients by providing better access to affordable and appropriate care. To find out how our care coordination increases quality of care and value for money, please see our Value for Money Model

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We have five audiences and for each group of stakeholders, we’ve identified how to apply our core message and point of difference – and we’re now aiming to clearly sound out the call, to everyone – from our clients to our company’s own staff.

1. Engage – improve your ability, live well at home

•  For our care-recipients and their carers, we maintain independence, encourage active participation, enabling or re-enabling our clients to make the most of their life at home
•  Let us work for you by working with you to improve your ability to get the best out of all aspects of life – with you, for you

2. Refer – make it easier, access services faster

• For health professionals and care providers, we make it easier to get access to services based on equity and a flexible model that can effectively respond to individual and local needs
• Let us work for you by working with you to improve your patients’ access to responsive services, best placed to meet their needs at home – with you, for you

3. Deliver – join with us, together we can do better

• For our providers and service organisations, we broker and refer all direct-care services to those subcontractors and other services that are best placed to meet our consumer’s needs, desires and goals
• Let us work for you by working with you to improve your ability to grow and achieve more in providing home care across Tasmania – with you, for you

4. Support – choose value and quality, every time

• For funding and purchasing organisations, we provide better quality and value for money through independent care coordination of services that maximise consumer access to affordable, appropriate care
• Let us work for you by working with you to improve your value-for-money purchasing choices in contracting home care services across Tasmania – with you, for you

5. Share – spread the word, we need your help

• For staff and friends of our organisation, we develop communication, resources, and opportunities to profile and build on the reputation of our organisation’s services, performance and points of difference
• Let us work for you by working with you to improve the community awareness of our home care programs and services – with you, for you

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From July 2015 a new national Commonwealth Home Support Program will combine all the services currently providing basic home support across Australia, including the existing Commonwealth Home Support Programme (Cwlth or State) (for older people) and a number of other programs*, to create one comprehensive basic home support program for older people to continue to live in the community.

The Commonwealth Home Support Program will use a new National Screening and Assessment Form, currently being developed, which will be broken down in the following way:

• Screening – All clients will complete the screening where possible. Some information may be prepopulated by referral information received by My Aged Care. In most cases screening will occur on the phone.

• Home Support Assessment – This tool will be used for clients screened into needing Home Support Services, it will also be used by ACAT teams as part of the comprehensive assessment. It will be completed by the regional assessor in most cases face to face at the client’s home.

• Comprehensive Assessment – This tool will only be used when clients are identified as needing assessment for residential care, transition care or a home care package. Some information will pre-populate from the Screening and Home Support Assessment sections.

• Supplementary Assessment – These tools provide additional assessment for specific areas of health identified as requiring further assessment as part of the comprehensive assessment.

Care Assess is particularly pleased to see recent improvements made by the Department on the Assessment Tool to incorporate a significant reablement focus. The Assessment tools have not yet been finalised but Care Assess will now commence preparations for the changes to assessment involved with the upcoming and new home support program, which will commence a year from now.

We are pleased that the Productivity Commission’s recommendation in June 2011 may now be able to be realised: that caring for older Australians must involve access via the Aged Care Gateway to intensive reablement services, such as Care Assess’ Home Independence program in Tasmania.

For more information about the Aged Care Gateway, please visit Next Stages of the Aged Care Gateway

For more information about Care Assess’ Home Independence program in Tasmania, please visit http://www.careassess.com.au/hhip

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* As well as the existing Commonwealth HACC program (for older people), the new Commonwealth Home Support program will combine the National Respite for Carers Program (NRCP), the Day Therapy Centres (DTC) program and the Assistance with Care and Housing for the Aged (ACHA) program

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The first stage involved the launching of the My Aged Care website (www.myagedcare.gov.au) and the My Aged Care contact centre (1800 200 422). The second stage commenced in July 2013, in which the Australian Government began building the capabilities of the Gateway, including roles and responsibilities and the tools necessary to commence Gateway assessments for access and entry into home care services in the near future in Australia.

The current stage is continuing with present work determining the relationship of the Gateway to the design of the new Commonwealth Home Support Program, which will commence in July 2015 to replace the current Home and Community Care (HACC) program and amalgamate with a number of other community aged care programs.

The next stage of the Gateway will provide a staged roll out of the national assessment framework, involving telephone screening by the Gateway contact centre and face-to-face assessments by regionally located assessment organisations on behalf of the Gateway.

This stage will include use of new Gateway assessment tools, a centralised client record, electronic referrals, and service matching tools.

The final plans have yet to be approved but it is anticipated that a staged roll out will commence from January 2015 in a small limited number of regions. Then from July 2015, with the commencement of the Commonwealth Home Support Program, the National Screening and Assessment functionality will commence for the new Aged Care Gateway. So from July 2015 there will be one assessment workforce across Australia for the Commonwealth Home Support Program, employing a Regional Assessment Teams model.

Care Assess has got a lot of work to do to prepare for the next stage of implementation of the My Aged Care Gateway. We are particularly thrilled to see the Australian Government recognising the need for a system-wide approach to reablement services and the importance of placing this at the front of end of the system. We also strongly support the emphasis in recognising the vital place of face-to-face assessment in order to ensure a wellness approach to maximising independence of consumers.

Further information about Care Assess

Care Assess is an independent assessment agency providing targeted, strategic and specialist HACC programs for older Tasmanians within the community sector, including: our post-acute enablement program (PAP), our intensive reablement program (HHIP), and our avoidance of hospital program (HAP). These higher level but short term programs require clinical/nursing oversight, and employ a wellness/restorative approach in order to maximise client functional independence outcomes while at the same time minimise overall/longer term service hours. For a quantitative evaluation of one of our programs, please see http://www.careassess.com.au/news/hhip-evaluation.

Please do not hesitate to make contact using our Contact Form to request further information from Care Assess about our HACC or other programs, or about our organisation.

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