BESTMED and Choice Aged Care partner for medication safety

Improving safety and interoperability in aged care is the central focus of the partnership between BESTMED and Choice Aged Care.

The partnership delivers an integration, where data is securely transferred between BESTMED’s medication management system and Choice Aged Care’s PPASS3 Tool — a free-to-industry auditing and benchmarking system. This digital ecosystem allows care providers to streamline and automate various data entry, reporting and clinical governance workflows.

“We know that a connected care system provides improved quality, safety and efficiency of care for consumers,” said BESTMED CEO Phil Offer.

“Our integration with Choice Aged Care allows providers the benefits of increased visibility to benchmark their use of medications and drive continuous improvement in medication management and reporting.”

One of the key benefits of the integration is workflow efficiencies captured for facility staff by eliminating the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual data entry.

“According to early anecdotal evidence, the automated data flow from BESTMED to PPASS-3 more than halves the facility staff workload relating to the ACQSC’s Psychotropic Self-Assessment Activity,” said Choice Aged Care owner and CEO Michael Bonner.

“As a clinician, I’m also really excited about the accuracy, higher-level clinical governance and real-time risk alerts that this integration delivers to facility and organisation level staff,” Bonner said.

The reliability and benefits of the integration were tested on a large scale when Southern Cross Care (NSW & ACT) went ‘live’ in late 2022.

“Southern Cross Care recognises that forming partnerships and adopting new technologies is instrumental to improving the wellbeing of aged care residents and the efficiency of those providing care,” said Gaynor Squillacioti, Chief Operating Officer, Southern Cross Care (NSW & ACT).

“The integration of this system in all our residential aged care homes has significantly improved medication management efficiency and governance. Through data automation, our team is advancing our reporting requirements and optimising clinical outcomes associated with polypharmacy and psychotropic medication,” Squillacioti said.

An upcoming CPD webinar masterclass, to be hosted by Offer and Bonner on 27 April, will highlight the role of data interoperability in achieving medication management efficiencies and governance as well as providing an overview of the integration.

Image credit: iStock.com/Kiwis