LASA Q Focus Magazine - Leading Age Services Australia ...

PERFORMANCESECTION NAMEas Key Performance Indicatorsfor individuals, internal controllimits and Industry Benchmarksfor service’s and organisationsto aspire to can then also createtemptations to want to be seen asachieving higher results than cansometimes be the case.The easy solution is then forindividuals and services to alterresults and manipulate datathat is used to evaluate theirperformance. In the context ofevaluating quality systems andperformance and using examplesfrom within the Moving ONAudits program, it may bemuch more favourable for astaff member to record a ‘Yes’response within a monthly auditor record a higher/lower figurein response to a quality indicatorto avoid an undesired flagpresenting on reports – especiallyif you then have to present orexplain that report to someoneelse or an appraisal of yours oryour services overall performanceis affected by these results.Staff attempting to artificiallyenhance their performancewithin aged care are puttingthemselves and the servicethat they represent in the samepredicament as a cheatingathlete. A deficit or weaknessin performance is being hiddenrather than addressed andimproved and while thosestaff may be accepting theaccolades they will also livein the knowledge that they areliving a lie. The big differencefrom sport is that a mistruth oran area of unidentified risk in acare situation is not just a stainon an individual’s conscienceor a contributor to a poor trackrecord; they have the potential toseriously impact the health andwell-being of other individuals.Unlike a sporting event, in realitythis is a matter of life or death.It also creates an uneven playingfield in terms of comparingresults and striving to improve.The clean cyclists riding in LanceArmstrong’s slip stream forover a decade were in pursuitof an artificial benchmarkbased on artificially enhancedperformance and results thatwere unachievable under ‘real’circumstances. Falsified andinaccurate data can have thesame effect in the comparisonof Aged and CommunityCare services, where industrybenchmarks are calculated basedon the results being contributedby individual services. If thisinformation has been alteredto influence perception priorto being accepted into thebenchmarking equation thennaturally this will be reflected inthe final figures.The vast majority of MovingON Audits members join theprogram with the overallobjective of creating a betteraged and community care servicethrough data. The individualservices results and reports arethen only as reliable as the dataentered into the system whichplaces the onus of responsibilityon them to be honest in theirdata collection and entry. Theseresults are anonymous and areonly accessible within memberservices and organisationsand not by any other externalindividual or body. So ultimatelythe data that is entered and thecorresponding results is only ofinterest to member services, andproviding the service’s leadersalso value and promote honestyover favourable results at allcosts, this then allows themto make confident decisions,based on strong and reliableinformation. The flags, alerts andalarms on reports are not theculmination of services qualityassurance activities nor are theythe most important part of theprocess. It is the actions thatservices take in response to theirresults that are imperative to keepthe continuous improvement cycleturning.Athletes with inaccurate measuresof their actual performancepotentially have unrealised andunaddressed weaknesses that areultimately exposed for all to seein an upcoming match or event,and if they try to supervene thisthrough doping there is a highprobability they will be caughtand disgraced, sooner or later,through drug testing. Aged andCommunity Care services workingwith accurate data have theopportunity to identify issues inperformance internally and rectifythem before they are revealedthrough a significant or less thanfavourable incident or a visit fromsomeone representing an officialdepartment. Also like ‘clean’athletes, positive performance isalso measurable and recognisedwith the resulting spoils andrewards being so much sweeterwhen they are achieved honestly.Steve CollierMoving on AuditsLASA-Q Focus | Autumn edition 2013 25