William Egan
CEO, Ausmed
D1 – Workforce
Solving the $8M Hidden Education Costs of Employee Turnover in Aged Care
Friday 14 October 2022
11:30am – 12:00pm
Speaker Bio
Will is the CEO of Ausmed, an organisation focused on improving the health of our communities by enabling individuals and providers to continuously improve their provision of care.
Over the past 15 years, Will and the Ausmed team have delivered a series of highly innovative solutions to the Australian healthcare industry. In 2021, these solutions were used over 1.55M times.
In May 2022, Ausmed launched an integrated policy and procedure management system designed for the aged care sector alongside Erigo and Anchor Excellence.
The “Aged Care Industry Passport” is Ausmed’s latest innovation, designed to significantly reduce the costly inefficiencies associated with repeat/overlapping mandatory training between providers.
In the years ahead, Ausmed will continue to expand and improve upon its range of highly integrated content and software solutions focused on enabling providers to improve consumer care. Ausmed aspires to become the industry standard for continuous improvement more broadly, not just education.
Abstract
Between 2016 and 2020, the Aged Care workforce increased 16% to 277,671. Industry projections forecast this to grow to 465,919 by 2030.
The 2020 Aged Care Workforce Census stated turnover was 29% from November 2019 to November 2020, with some organisations experiencing turnover as high as 65%. The impact of high staff turnover on the quality of care is well documented, but less discussed are the hidden education costs associated with high staff turnover.
It is estimated that unnecessary education costs the sector approximately $8.02M in 2020. This will grow to $31.81M by 2030.
On joining a residential aged care provider, new employees complete numerous hours of compliance education before they are allowed on shift.
For example, Registered Nurse Annie works for one provider Mon, Tues and Wed and another provider on weekends and public holidays. Annie will be required to do the same or similar education at both her employers.
Let’s add high industry turnover to the equation. Annie decides after two weeks in a new job that she can get a better paid role closer to home. Upon moving to another provider, Annie will need to redo ALL education and be re-assessed as competent by her new employer.
Clearly, the inability of providers to recognise education from a previous employer is an inefficiency across the sector. This results in staff re-doing unnecessary learning simply to tick compliance boxes. Problems include:
– Employees duplicating or triplicating the same or similar education;
– Delays before employees are “allowed” to begin caring for consumers; and,
– A significant and unnecessary cost to employers.
In mid-2022, McKenzie approached Ausmed Education about developing an “Aged Care Industry Passport” with a number of other providers. The “Aged Care Industry Passport” is intended to be a digital certificate staff can take from one employer to another to evidence they have done the overlapping mandatory education. 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 “Aged Care Industry Passport” will significantly reduce the amount the sector spends on unnecessary education every year and increase the funding available for continuous improvement initiatives.
Sources:
Department of Health, 2021. 2020 Aged Care Workforce Census. Online: Australian Government – Department of Health.
Department of Health. (2020). Aged care reform: projecting future impacts. Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
Ausmed’s digital “Aged Care Compliance Passport” could save $8.02M per annum in unnecessary education costs associated with staff turnover.
