McKenzie Aged Care Wins innovAGEING National Award

The winners of the Annual innovAGEING National Awards were announced at an online awards ceremony on 24 November 2022. McKenzie Aged Care with Ausmed partnered to win the award for ‘Increasing Care and Service Productivity’, which is one of the six categories aimed at enhancing aged care services for older Australians and staff in Australia.

This award win recognises the innovation and development of an “Aged Care Industry Passport” – a digital certificate that aged care workers can carry with them from one employer to the next to evidence they have completed mandatory training relevant to and recognised by the sector.

Sammantha Hewitt, Group Organisational Development Manager for McKenzie says, “I am very grateful to work for an organisation and Executive that values and encourages blue sky thinking. My vision in everything I do is to enhance our residents experience within aged care and also staff learning and development. Ausmed has brought this vision to life and has transformed the landscape of the industry. The Ausmed Passport™ has the potential to change not only residential aged care but also home care; NDIS and the acute sector.”

In 2022, McKenzie Aged Care Group approached Ausmed Education about improving the efficiency of its training programs by leveraging Ausmed’s learning platform and recognising training that was common, if not mandatory, across the industry.

McKenzie observed their mandatory training program was similar to other providers and that many staff were unnecessarily repeating training. An analysis estimated that this was costing the sector $8.02M and that it will grow to $31.81M by 2030.

McKenzie recognised an opportunity to align staff, processes, data, and technology to reduce the burden of repeat training and refocus that energy towards high-impact training to improve care. Its primary motivation was to increase the time spent on learning and development initiatives aimed at improving the quality and care of their residents. Ultimately, this was to improve the quality and care of McKenzie residents by ensuring staff focus their training time on high-impact programs.

To achieve this, McKenzie and Ausmed sought to create the “Aged Care Industry Passport” with several other providers. This resulted in the Ausmed Passport™.
Benefits include employees not doing education they have already done, shorter times before staff can begin caring for consumers, and reducing education costs incurred by providers.

The Ausmed Passport™ will significantly reduce the amount the sector spends on unnecessary education every year, and increase the funding available for continuous improvement initiatives.

Head of innovAGEING, Merlin Kong, said, “Innovation in aged care is not just about having the right technology and set up, it’s about supporting the workforce to deliver better care, and equipping them with the right tools and systems.”

Images sourced from Ausmed