Aims:
The Quality Indicator Program (QI Program) requires residential aged care providers to report care quality metrics quarterly. However, fragmented data systems and lack of real-time decision support tools limit the program’s impact on personalised care. This project aimed to develop and implement an application to integrate QI Program data into residential aged care clinical workflows for personalised care planning.
Methods:
Experienced aged care digital health researchers led the collaborative codevelopment of the app, involving a large multi-state residential aged care provider, software vendors, and the Department of Health, Ageing & Disability. It was designed using the SMART on FHIR framework to provide resident-level data to clinicians for care planning and tracking, and piloted with nurses in two facilities. Semi-structured interviews with development teams were conducted post-implementation and analysed using thematic analysis to document barriers, facilitators, and lessons learned.
Results:
The app successfully consolidated data from the CIS, enabling clinicians to view details and summaries of resident clinical records in real-time. Nurses in the pilot reported the app would enhance data-driven care planning, ease the burden of extracting data from multiple systems, and facilitate handovers and case reviews. The qualitative study emphasized the significance of collaboration and stakeholder buy-in during development and implementation, and highlighted challenges related to data quality and proprietary vendor data systems.
Conclusions:
Embedding SMART on FHIR applications within aged care CIS is feasible and can improve access to real‑time QI data for care planning. Broader adoption could reduce data burden on providers and enhance data-driven care.