Aims:
Access Aged Care (AAC) cares for ~4,500 residents in ~100 residential aged care facilities (RACF) across Australia through a hybrid telehealth/in-person model of shared care with GPs and geriatricians supported by dedicated nurses. We aimed to measure key clinical outcomes to assess our model compared with standard care and inform the creation of an ongoing clinical quality registry.
Methods:
A sample of 559 patients from 11 RACF representing the AAC model in normal operation were included. RACF with >50 AAC patients and where data collection was practical were included. Patients under AAC care for >3 months on 1 April 2025, and under care for the full Apr-Dec 2025 period were included.
Records from AAC’s medical record and RACF clinical/medication systems were reviewed by AAC nurses. For each patient, the number of ED presentations and unplanned hospital admissions between Apr-Dec 2025 were counted. Relevant medications prescribed at the end of each quarter were counted. Data were recorded in Excel for analysis.
Results:
ED presentations were 0.84 per patient per year, unplanned hospital admissions were 0.76 per patient per year and polypharmacy was an average of 8.01 medications per patient. Respectively, these outcomes are 51%, 37% and 22% lower than published averages for patients receiving the standard model of care.
Conclusions:
The AAC model is effective in improving all three key outcome measures compared to the standard model of care. AAC is expanding the scope of data in its new clinical quality registry to allow further analysis.