Our Powers Unite: Multi-disciplinary In-home Complex Care Management.

Friday 14 October 2022

11:30am – 12:00pm

Speaker Bio

Sarah Newman is the General Manager of BaptistCare at home, one of Australia’s largest Home Care providers. Sarah has worked for BaptistCare NSW & ACT for 12 years, initially in Research, Learning and Leadership Development roles, and for the last 4 years heading up the rapidly expanding Home Care arm of the organisation.

Over the past few years BaptistCare at home have focussed on the importance of providing well-informed, holistic care for ageing clients with complex health conditions. A key focus has been the addition of allied health professionals into all teams, to build capability to provide best practice, responsive, well-informed care.

Sarah holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Masters in Applied Social Sciences and Management. She is refreshed by time spent with friends, her children and every expanding brood of delightful grandchildren.

Abstract 

Born from the frustrations of onboarding new clients with long out-of-date ACAT Assessments, BaptistCare NSW & ACT invested in embedding specialised Allied Health staff within each care management team, initially specifically to add value through skilled, comprehensive assessments.

What started as an initiative around assessment soon grew well beyond to provide a significant value-add for clients and across the whole care management team. These Allied Health qualified Health and Well-Living (HWL) Consultants became the go-to people not only for assessment, but also for complex care planning, intervention design, case conferencing, advise on responding to functional decline, and championing a variety of wellness and reablement approaches.

Upon package commencement, and at key points along the client’s journey, the HWL Consultants undertake a comprehensive, holistic assessment of the consumer. Along with a review of the client’s physical, social, cognitive and psychological status and contributing factors, the Consultants also guide care managers and direct care staff on very practical techniques for incorporating individualised wellness and reablement strategies in ongoing service delivery.

Care management within the Home Care Package Program has become a multi-faceted activity, covering everything from care planning to specialised procurement, logisitics to social arrangements, with ample amounts of paperwork thrown in. The ability to add the expertise of highly trained Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists, with extensive community aged care experience, is leading to an important strengthening across the whole team, and brilliant outcomes for clients.