Indicators of quality for Australian residential aged care facilities: establishing reliability, validity, and quality benchmarks
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Funded by the Queensland Nursing Council
Prof Mary Courtney Assistant Dean (Research), Faculty of Health, QUT
Maria O’Reilly, PhD Candidate, Institute of Health & Biomedical Innovation, QUT
Prof Helen Edwards Head, School of Nursing, QUT
Stacey Hassall, Senior Policy and Process Facilitator, Business Improvement Team, Blue Care
No comprehensive system currently exists to assess quality of care within Australian residential aged care facilities. An ongoing research collaboration between QUT School of Nursing and Blue Care has attempted to address this gap through the development and national trial of the Clinical Care Indicators (CCI) Tool. The CCI Tool assesses quality of care through clinical outcomes, and it appears to have excellent potential for use in routine quality monitoring. However, its ability to be consistently applied remains untested. This study thus seeks to establish the CCI Tool as a viable instrument, and to develop preliminary standards against which facilities could compare their results. Establishing the CCI Tool's psychometric properties will foster confidence in its use, and developing quality benchmarks will ensure that it has practical applications within the quality improvement cycle. This will enable it to be taken up on a wide scale, thus facilitating assessment and improvement to quality of care provided within residential aged care facilities.
Contact: Maria O'Reilly PhD Candidate Email: m2.oreilly@qut.edu.au
Further Information:
online publications:
- Courtney, M., O'Reilly, M. T., Edwards, H., & Hassall, S. (2007). Development of a systematic approach to assessing quality within Australian residential aged care facilities: The Clinical Care Indicators (CCI) Tool. Australian Health Review, 31(4), 582-591.
- O'Reilly, M., Courtney, M., & Edwards, H. (2007). How is quality being monitored in Australian residential aged care facilities? A narrative review. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19(3), 177-182.
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