AAA September - October 2018 Cover Story

S EP-OCT 18

australianageingagenda.com.au

The dawning of a

new era

LASA National Congress leads the way

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FEATURE

SPONSORED FEATURE Industry experts discuss the key issues facing the sector.

The dawning of a

new era

As ageing moves to an era where longevity of life is celebrated and consumers are empowered to choose, Leading Age Services Australia is shining a light on the next generation of thinking and practice in the age services industry at its upcoming national conference.

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eading Age Services Australia (LASA) is bringing the aged care industry together in October to lead a conversation on the transformation related to ageing and age services underway at its national congress in Adelaide.

The 2018 Leading Age Services Australia Congress includes a range of new and innovative features to facilitate three days of interactive discussions to prepare providers for a future where they will need to embrace disruptive innovation as the new normal.

As part of the main programming there are 85 speakers, 12 concurrent streams and six interactive sessions targeting different issues, in addition to an early morning program of four breakfast sessions across two days.

The evening line-up includes three issuethemed dinners one night followed the next by the Congress Dinner, where the National Excellence in Age Services Awards winners will be announced.

There are also several other networking and learning opportunities including five social events and 146 trade exhibitors to visit throughout the event.

This year’s event has the theme ‘Ageing Transformed… the Dawning of a New Era’ and aims to “shine that first light” on the transformed ageing terrain of new era thinking, practices and 34 | SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2018

Sean Rooney

Merlin Kong

models of age services for the next generation and beyond.

Sean Rooney, CEO of LASA, says the LASA National Congress is the aged care industry’s premiere event for learning, sharing, networking and celebrating.

“We expect in excess of 1,200 industry leaders and representatives to converge on Adelaide for what will be an outstanding few days of progressing industry thought and practice in meeting the changing needs of the growing numbers of older Australians,” Rooney tells Australian Ageing Agenda.

“The sun is rising quickly on a new era in age services. As the Baby Boomer generation ages, Australia is facing a new normal in age services, requiring a major shift in the way we think about ageing and aged care,” Rooney says.

“Providers need to embrace disruptive innovation, reimagine the built and virtual environments, champion thought leadership at every opportunity and negotiate the dynamic boundaries of ageing well,” he says.

The event will address the “massive changes afoot,” says Rooney, including an increasingly informed and discerning community driven by consumer directed care.

“We saw that trend clearly at the LASA aged care Expo in Perth in August. More people are choosing to age in their home and community

SPONSORED FEATURE and new models of home care and retirement living continue to emerge.

“The successful implementation of the new aged care quality standards, along with more specific issues such as palliative care and the mental health of older Australians, are other key focuses for our industry,” he says.

The aged care workforce, which the Productivity Commission estimates will need to grow by 168 per cent by 2050 to almost 1 million people, remains a top-priority issue for all in the sector, says Rooney.

“How do we as a sector embrace the workforce strategy developed by the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce to develop, attract and retain a top quality workforce are critical questions that will be explored.”

Among those presenting in this space is Neil Eastwood, an international speaker on care worker recruitment and retention, who will share lessons from around the world on building and keeping a care workforce.

In this high-energy session Neil will divulge the recruitment and retention secrets he discovered repeatedly being used by high-growth care employers. These proven methods are now transforming the fortunes of care organisations of all types and many tips can be actioned by delegates immediately, he says.

Conference highlights

As part of the redesigned conference format – and as a way to bring a community of people together to discuss and solve issues as a true congress does – this year’s congress features a town hall meeting.

The forum will provide delegates with opportunities to raise the aged care sector issues most important to them and discuss the strategies to address them.

“As the next federal election looms, congress also provides a vital opportunity to help build industry consensus on key policy issues and ensure ageing and aged care are recognised as issues of national importance and at the heart of the nation’s political debate,” Rooney says.

LASA Congress attracts national media.

“Across all areas of operations there is an innovation imperative and this will once again be a big theme of this year’s congress.”

“The new town hall style meeting with opportunities for delegate input will help with this process.”

Throughout the three-day program Ellen Fanning, an award-winning public affairs journalist and congress Master of Ceremonies, will help drive the conversation about the emerging new ageing landscape.

Fanning has interviewed every Australian Prime Minister from Sir John Grey Gorton to Malcolm Turnbull and reported politics from Canberra to the White House. She is currently co-presenter of ABC TV’s “The Drum” and a regular presence on ABC Radio, and sure to keep a lively and informative conversation going.

The founder of social networking platform One Good Street, Matiu Bush, will share news of a pilot underway in North Melbourne and Kensington that aims to reduce social isolation and loneliness in older residents by encouraging neighbour-initiated care.

Matiu, who is design integration lead at Bolton Clarke, says One Good Street seeks to create opportunities for residents to make a positive difference in the lives of their senior neighbours.

National Excellence in Age Services Awards winners will be announced at the conference dinner.

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SPONSORED FEATURE

LASA Congress features a diverse range of expert speakers.

A driver of innovation and creativity in the aged and community sector, Matui also started Australia’s first lending library of aged care equipment. He says both initiatives were in response to the need to use the latent capacity within neighbourhoods to help older people stay at home for as long as possible.

Elsewhere Geoff Grady, CEO of Aveo Group, will address delegates on the media and public stakeholder scrutiny that is now a fact of life for the senior living and aged care sector.

He will outline his experience over the past year and how Aveo responded to the extraordinary challenge with all stakeholders including potential residents, industry, government, media, and existing residents.

“Across all areas of operations there is an innovation imperative and this will once again be a big theme of this year’s congress,” says Rooney.

The standout new inclusion of this year’s congress is the Innovation Hub, which will run a complementary program including 20 speakers over the three days to highlight innovative

The trade exhibition showcases more than 140 industry products, services and innovators.

“The sun is rising quickly on a new era in age services.”

practices, products and thinking in the age services sector.

This hub is sponsored by national aged care innovation network innovAGEING with support from the Commonwealth Government, CommBank, KPMG, Mirus Group’s ALIVE and KontentLabs.

Merlin Kong, principal adviser at innovAGEING, says the hub will build on the congress theme and showcase the latest in aged care thinking and practice.

“The Innovation Hub is an incredible

Focus dinners The introduction of three focus dinners on the Monday evening featuring thought-provoking speakers provides delegates both a networking and learning opportunity.

One of those speakers is Customer Experience Innovation author Dr Robert Dew who is speaking about next-level client experience (CX), a hot topic in the age services sector as new national quality standards focus heavily on the experience of consumers.

“As a result many aged care providers have little choice but to comply. Successful providers are turning the tables on the required changes by leveraging the new standards to drive CX based innovation for advocacy and referral,” says Dew. Dew will draw on the practical and innovative strategies outlined in his book that aim to provide

36 | SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2018

managers with a simple framework to develop CX innovations.

“The challenge is not so much finding out what customers like, as it is remaining apart from the crowd of rivals and copycats,” says Dew. Another dinner features Merlin Kong, principal advisor innovation at LASA, who will explore fascinating findings on scarcity and practical ways to identify and address traps that could keep organisations from having to play catch-up in the industry.

The theme of the third dinner looks at not-for-profits and industry working together for a better resident experience. It includes a presentation on an initiative codriven by a supplier and provider and a panel discussion on the importance of resident and staff evaluations.

SPONSORED FEATURE

Early risers For those looking for networking and learning opportunities ahead the day’s program, four breakfast sessions put the focus on: 1. Future home care reform 2. The Single Aged Care Quality Framework 3. Digital health 4. Clinical care The sessions take place on Monday (1 and 2) and Tuesday (3 and 4) from 7.00am – 8.30am.

opportunity to share the latest in management practices and thinking on aged care innovation at what is the largest aged care event in Australia,” Kong tells Australian Ageing Agenda.

“The curated speakers’ line-up is a showcase of innovation best practices in our industry. We’re focusing the hub as a forum to share industry experience in tackling strategic organisational issues in delivering positive outcomes for older Australians and their families.”

The hub will showcase industry innovations from organisations including Bolton Clarke, IRT Group, Eldercare, Dementia Australia and the National Ageing Research Institute.

Topics covered in panel discussions include: • connecting the intersections between personcentred design, corporate strategy and shared value • identifying the role of start-up ecosystems and open innovation in the aged care industry • applying process improvement learnings from other industries • designing for consumer-centricity and its impacts on services and products.

“Success for innovAGEING would be that the hub imparts to congress attendees a sense that innovation is not just about VR goggles, sensors, robots, artificial intelligence, IT systems and whatever have you,” says Kong.

“And that innovation is something that begins with an idea to make people’s lives better and everything else is a means to this end.”

Elsewhere among new program features that aim to get delegates actively involved are a series of “Fishbowl Conversations” which provide an open discussion forum for those in the audience to help drive the conversation on specific sector issues.

One of the fishbowl conversations is looking at the challenges and successes of ageing in rural and remote communities while another is talking about reframing death and dying in Australia.

The forums take an interactive approach where a subject matter expert kicks off the discussion with a short presentation before the microphone is passed around the audience to hear delegate’s comments and directions about where the discussion should go.

In one session, next generation talent working in the age services industry will share their insights, while another, facilitated

by LASA board chair Dr Graeme Blackman, will discuss issues related to governance and

Explore the region LASA is offering a number of full-day sightseeing tours of Adelaide and surrounds as part of the congress experience.

• The Adelaide Hills tour takes in the Beerenberg Farm Shop, the historic town of Hahndorf, lunch at The Haus and wine tasting at The Lane.

• A Day in the Barossa Valley includes a visit to the Barossa Valley Cheese Company, lunch at Maggie Beer’s Farm Eatery, private wine tasting at Seppeltsfield Winery and additional winery tasting in another location.

• The McLaren Vale Tour features wine tasting and lunch at Wirra Wirra winery, a tour of d’Arenberg Winery’s Cube along with a sample of their wines, and free time in McLaren Vale.

12

concurrent streams

6

fishbowl conversations

85

congress program speakers

20

innovation hub presenters

exclusively target board members of aged care service organisations.

The remaining sessions explore the consumer experience at the intersection between the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the aged care system and new models for allocating the funding in residential aged care.

This year’s congress also incorporates a dedicated international stream titled ‘The China Australia Exchange’. It includes sessions on the China Experience from David Lane, chair of Trade and Investment Queensland’s China Strategy Initiative, along with other providers who have working interests in China.

LASA has also been working with Ivy Lee from CCIA to bring a Chinese delegation of 20 stakeholders to attend congress and meet with Australian age service providers.

“It is wonderful that this year’s congress has attracted international support with a delegation from China and likely other parts of Asia attending,” says Rooney. “I encourage all with an interest in age services to attend and I look forward to seeing you in Adelaide in October.” n

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LASA National Congress 2018

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Contact LASA: 1300 111 636 E: info@lasa.asn.au W: lasa.asn.au

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trade exhibitors

28 – 30 October Adelaide Convention Centre T: 07 3725 5588 www.lasacongress.asn.au #LASACongress2018

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