In 2018, the Australian Government established a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality
and Safety.
1
Recommendations from the final report in 2021 included national monitoring of quality
of care in residential aged care facilities (RACFs) and the need to improve medication-related
care to reduce medication-related harms and improve resident well-being.
1
Over the past decade, the health status of those entering RACFs in Australia has
worsened, together with increased frailty and polypharmacy.
2
Studies have shown that 44% to 73% of RACF residents use 1 or more potentially inappropriate
medications, including high-risk medications such as opioids and antipsychotics.
3
,4
Internationally, many countries mandate the monitoring and reporting of medication-related
quality of care in residential long-term care with the aim to drive improvements in
quality and care outcomes.
5
The Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) has developed quality indicators to examine
the quality and safety of aged care using existing data sources, including 4 medication-related
indicators (high sedative load, antipsychotic use, chronic opioid use, and antibiotic
use) to monitor medication-related care.
6
Using these indicators, we examined if medication-related quality of care in Australia
has changed over the past 5 years, using routinely collected data.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of the American Medical Directors AssociationAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Final Report: Care, Dignity and Respect. Volume 1 Summary and Recommendations.(Accessed January 12, 2022.)
- Health status and healthcare trends of individuals accessing Australian aged care programmes over a decade: the Registry of Senior Australians historical cohort.Intern Med J. 2021; 51: 712-724
- High-risk medication use in older residents of long-term care facilities: prevalence, harms, and strategies to mitigate risks and enhance use.Sr Care Pharm. 2020; 35: 419-433
- Medicine Safety: Aged Care.Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, Canberra, Australia2020
- International and National Quality and Safety Indicators for Aged Care.in: Research Paper 8. Report for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Adelaide, Australia2020
- The Registry of Senior Australians outcome monitoring system: quality and safety indicators for residential aged care.Int J Qual Health Care. 2020; 32: 502-510
- Trends in antipsychotic prescribing among long-term care residents receiving hospice care.J Am Geriatr Soc. 2021; 69: 2152-2162
Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 13, 2022
Accepted:
July 10,
2022
Received:
July 5,
2022
Footnotes
This work was supported by a Hospital Research Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship (MCF-27-2019) and an NHMRC Investigator Grant (APP119378). J.K.S. is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Early Career Fellowship (APP1156439).
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.