Advancing aged care: a systematic review of economic evaluations of workforce structures and care processes in a residential care setting
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Date
2016
Authors
Easton, Tiffany
Milte, Rachel
Crotty, Maria
Ratcliffe, Julie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
Rights
© The Author(s) 2016.
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The Authors
Abstract
Long-term care for older people is provided in both residential and non-residential settings, with residential settings tending to cater for individuals with higher care needs. Evidence relating to the costs and effectiveness of different workforce structures and care processes is important to facilitate the future planning of residential aged care services to promote high quality care and to enhance the quality of life of individuals living in residential care. A systematic review conducted up to December 2015 identified 19 studies containing an economic component; seven included a complete economic evaluation and 12 contained a cost analysis only. Key findings include the potential to create cost savings from a societal perspective through enhanced staffing levels and quality improvement interventions within residential aged care facilities, while integrated care models, including the integration of health disciplines and the integration between residents and care staff, were shown to have limited cost-saving potential. Six of the 19 identified studies examined dementia-specific structures and processes, in which person-centred interventions demonstrated the potential to reduce agitation and improve residents’ quality of life. Importantly, this review highlights methodological limitations in the existing evidence and an urgent need for future research to identify appropriate and meaningful outcome measures that can be used at a service planning level.
Description
This is an open access article. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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Citation
Easton, T., Milte, R., Crotty, M., & Ratcliffe, J. (2016, December). Advancing aged care: a systematic review of economic evaluations of workforce structures and care processes in a residential care setting. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12962-016-0061-4