Friday 31 January 2014 - Meeting the challenges of our ageing population
David Meates
Canterbury‟s population is ageing – even more so than in other parts of New Zealand. We have the largest population of people over 75, and by 2026 one in five of us will be over 65 and the number over 85 will have doubled.
While this places huge additional pressures on the health system, we‟ve shown that by working collaboratively we can keep people well in their own homes for longer and pull back the reins on hospital admissions. Most importantly of all, we have shown we can do this while providing better care to more people. A lot of work is going on at the moment looking at how we can improve the way we plan, coordinate and provide care for frail elderly people in our community and to ensure this coordinated care is continued in our hospital services. We have looked at what the optimal standards of care are worldwide, and are working to ensure our systems and processes support people to access the right care in the right place at the right time, delivered by the right person. We have already introduced some changes to the way we provide services for frail elderly people. These include: The development of a frail elderly pathway to make our existing processes, relationships and services even better. This has focused both on frail pathway in our hospitals and supporting services in the community. Incorporated in this pathway is how we continue to support our community providers to improve the quality of their CREST, Falls Prevention and Restorative Home Support services while also identifying new areas which will allow individuals to remain in their own home for longer. For patients who are admitted, the pathway focuses on restorative approaches from admission in a multidisciplinary approach addressing the patient‟s needs. Goals have been agreed and our progress made transparent through the visibility and frequent updating of the sfn viewer (see some results overleaf). The pathway relies on whole of the system working together for our frail elderly people. CREST (Community Rehabilitative Enablement Service) helps people over 65 who were in hospital, or at risk of being admitted, to regain independence by being safely supported in their own homes. Multidisciplinary teams work together to support the various needs of a patient. Restorative community home based support provides an integrated approach to assessment and service delivery. Services are flexible, integrated and responsive to enable people to maintain their independence safely in their homes and communities. Rollout of interRAI. InterRAI is a tool that provides a comprehensive clinical assessment of needs, which is then fed into the development of tailor-made care plans. Its roll out has helped us to improve client goal setting and our planning for services like CREST and restorative home support. Medication Management Service is delivered by pharmacists to support people in their own homes who are having difficulties managing their medications. Continued overleaf...