‘If We Don’t Measure It We Can’t Improve It’. Developing and Validating New Measures of Quality of Life and Care Experience with Older People in Home and Residential Aged Care Settings

Aged care in Australia, as in many other countries, is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Over $21.5 billion was allocated in government expenditure to finance Australia’s aged care system in 2019–2020 alone. During this period over 1 million older Australians received care and support at home and over 230,000 were permanently living in residential care. These estimates are expected to increase exponentially in the coming decades due to population ageing. New methods, techniques and evaluative frameworks are needed to overcome resource constraints while maximizing the quality of life and wellbeing of older Australians. Economic evaluation offers a rigorous, systematic, and transparent framework for measuring quality and efficiency but to date relatively few economic evaluations have been conducted in aged care despite the large potential benefits associated with their application. This presentation will focus on a four-year program of work funded by the Australian Research Council and the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety to develop new person-centred quality indicators for aged care focused on quality of life and quality of care experience. The new measures have recently been rolled out nationally in Australia as key components of the revised Quality Indicators Program with the main objective of increasing public accountability and transparency and facilitating aged care system decision making.