Background: Australia’s aged care system provides subsidised support to eligible older people, of which aged care assessment teams are a fundamental component. They are responsible for conducting needs-based assessments to determine an older person’s eligibility for, and access to government-funded aged care services. Whilst quality indicators have been introduced for residential aged care services, and have been recommended for home care services, there are currently no quality indicators for aged care assessment services.
Objective: This study investigated older people’s perspectives of 24 preliminary person-centred quality indicators (PC-QIs) that were developed as part of a larger research program.
Methods: This mixed methods study comprised the final phase of a modified Delphi research program and used the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method to reach consensus. The researchers developed a consensus statement for quality indicator elimination prior to community-dwelling older people (n=25) voting on the importance of the PC-QIs. Participants voted using a rating scale during individual sessions with the principal researcher who audio-recorded the sessions to capture any narrative provided by participants regarding the PC-QIs. The audio-recordings were subsequently transcribed verbatim.
Results: All 24 QIs were approved. Variation existed among ratings for each PC-QI which were rank ordered according to their perceived importance to participants. Final quality domains, their respective title, quality indicator descriptor and supporting qualitative data are presented.
Conclusions: PC-QIs for Australian aged care assessment services that determine eligibility and access may support the overall quality of aged care services from assessment of eligibility through to delivery of care.