Aged Care Industry In Australia: Current Scenario, Competitions, And Strategies Essay.

The report aims to present the current healthcare scenario of the Australian aged care industry. It focuses on how the industry has been growing as the population of the elderly has been rising in Australia. The report has also focused on how the industry has got its segmentations as well.

For this purpose, a thorough research was conducted on the particular company of Bupa Aged Care along with other companies. Research was made on the competition that exists within the newly arrived companies and the old companies within the industry.

The research also focuses on the different strategies taken by different companies for survival.  The report concludes that aged care is an important part of the country of Australia, both socially and economically. It not only helps the older population to live a life of peace and care but also helps in the growth of the Australian economy as it provides profit business to the company holders of the industry.

Definition of Aged Care Industry

Caring for the aged population is one of the persisting issues of Australia as is the case with many other countries. In order to deal with the issue Australian Government has made several health care policies which are aimed at providing proper care to the aged citizens of the country. This includes the provision of providing residential support, or social support and caring through numerous other ways that might prove helpful to the aged members of the society. One of the major sectors in which the old people need care is the medical sector (Baldwin and Chenoweth 2015). The government of Australia has devised various policies that focus on the health care plans for the old aged people. This helps them to get medical care at the expanses of the government. While some of the implemented policies have proven to be successful, some has failed to be effective and provide any help to the senior citizens. A number of policies had faced problems while getting implemented which had prevented them getting to any practical use. This report is going focus on the aged care system and sector in Australia. It is also going to analyze the different segments of the industry, its ethical problems and other various issues.

Definition of Aged Care Industry:

By the term ‘aged care industry’ it is generally referred to the industry that bases itself on taking care of the aged people of a country. Australia is no exception in having an industry that has based itself on the services and facilities which are provided to the old citizens (Anderson, Bernoth and Croxon 2017). Given the fact that the population of the ageing people is one of the most common issues faced by any country the industry that bases itself on that is quite a throbbing and large one. Population ageing has created fresh challenges and opportunities for both the government and the health care industry. It has also given new dimensions to traditional cultures and services which are being offered socially.

The Australian aged care industry happens to be an international benchmark for practice. The credit goes to the initiatives taken by the government, a solid framework that helps the industry to move in the right way and the history that has existed between the service providers of the aged care industry and the Australian government. The main activities of the Australian industry concern itself with products, research, services, development and training. One of their focuses of action is the dementia care system (Radford, Shacklock and Bradley 2015). The aged care industry has also developed new sectors, resources and services to meet the growing demands of the ageing population. Among the twenty three million of the Australian population, almost over a million aged people receive some kind of care from the aged cared industry of the country (Gao et al. 2014). This industry is being funded by all the three levels of government, i.e. the local government, the state government and the federal government.

Main Activities of the Aged Care Industry

The present aged care community of Australia has almost over five hundred providers all across the country. With the move towards a system that is based on market since the year 2017 it is likely that the Australian aged industry will also go through similar changes. The industry market is mainly dominated by groups and organizations, which are non-profit and runs mainly on faith affiliation. These organizations are fragmented with a large number of providers within small geographical locations (Kaine and Ravenswood 2014).

An analysis of the present distribution of Packages of Home Care which has been based on the Department of Social Services, listing of the year 2014, shows a large amount of dispersion. According to the analysis the biggest service providing company holds only 3.4 percent of all the packages. In fact, only seventy two percent of the providers hold less than one hundred packages (Renzaho et al. 2016). This has prevented the aged care to be formed as a core business and rather operate as a part of a large industry.

In a market that operates in this way it is important for the providers to make a clear choice regarding their preparation to invest with the aim to become a potential competitor in the market. It is noteworthy that the Australian citizens are interested in getting formal care even if it proves to be costlier which has caused the decline of informal care (Kaine and Ravenswood 2014). New companies are entering the industry with more wealth and more demands that the earlier companies could provide.

Bupa Aged Care happens to be one of the leading private health care residential in the Australian market. It provides more than seventy care homes all across the country. The Bupa Aged Care happens to provide a large variety of support and care to almost six thousand seven hundred residents of the country, which includes respite, residential and specialized care for dementia patients. The company is globally a part of an international health care group which supports almost thirty two million customers in one hundred and ninety countries (Bupaagedcare.com.au 2017). In Australia it not only provides residential aged care but also is the provider of different kinds of health related services through their networks with dental and optical clinics.

However, an analysis conducted by KPMG shows that the Australian home care market is a fast changing industry with the entries of new companies within the industry. The new companies have already started providing different kinds of services like various kinds of home care, residential care services and retirement living (Liz Forsyth 2017). Almost seventy percent of these provided services result in profit business. If the leaders of the existing companies do not pay much attention to the changing conditions of the market, they will not be able to cope up with the competition. However, the existing companies too do have certain strong points that will help them to survive in the changing market scenario.

Current Landscape of the Industry

The analysis conducted by KPMG on the Aged Care new entries has brought forward the fact that almost ninety-five of the total three hundred and one service providers are new to the market. In the states of Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia the new entries of the industry make up almost one third of the providers of old age service (Liz Forsyth 2017).

The coming in of the new companies has definitely caused some visible changes within the competitive landscaped of the industry. The main players are mainly focusing on their strategies to increase their share in the market so that they can have better scale, depth and breadth (Broad et al. 2015). They are doing this mainly through acquisitions and mergers. The other business models that are being followed by some of the companies are franchise-based models. Through this model, they are able to directly connect with the customers and look after their requirements properly.

A number of organizations are also bringing major changes to their plans and include different services like provision of meals, mobility aids, specialized services in housing and many more attractive packages to invite customers and enhance their business.

Demographic Change:

The ageing population of Australia will affect the demand for services of the aged care in a significant manner. This demographic trend can be segmented into two aspects (Nusem, Wrigley and Matthews 2017). The first one is the change of structure in the Australian population and the second is the increasing longevity of the elderly in Australia.

The main reason behind the changing population of Australia is the generation named as ‘baby boomer’. They happen to represent a significant portion of the Australian population and this group of people has moved into the age group of sixty five and above it. Over the span of the last decade, the growth in population of the age group of sixty five has averaged around three percent per annum (Crettenden et al. 2014). It has significantly overpowered the growth in the population of the younger people over the same span of time.

The funding of the aged care system is quite a complex process. The funding is provided both by private and public sectors and it differs greatly in terms of home care and residential care services. Over the recent years, the issue about the funding of aged care had been a subject of discussion. The process of funding is now moving towards a system that is more based on market and is driven by customer needs (Duckett and Willcox 2015). These changes are happening along with the biggest economical reforms, which are occurring in the aged care industry of the country of Australia.

Major Companies within the Industry and their Business Models

The Commonwealth has committed to provide a more customer driven service and it is reflected in a clear manner with the recent reforms in the funding policy of the aged care industry. Given the fact that the elderly people like the service being provided by staying at home in most of the cases, the government has moved to a way of providing a CDC (Consumer Directed Care) model where they have shifted the funding allocations from the providers of the service to the consumers who are being provided with the service (Duckett and Willcox 2015). For instance, previously providers of service were being funded by the government with payments per package. Now, after bringing certain changes to the existing norms payments are now made to the providers of service, basing on the categorization of recipients of home care services. this new norm allows the consumers to be provided with the funding and then choose their preferred mode of the aged service from the existing range of services (Nakanishi and Nakanishi 2014).

The ethical world is not just made of rules of morality and compliance. Ethics refers to a philosophy that associates itself with being and living both in the personal and professional sector. It is more about the contexts of a relationship and connection as well as of intuition and emotional. In the perspective of the changing dimensions of the aged care industry the value f ethics and moral codes of dealing with the elderly is also changing (Hospitalhealth.com.au 2017). There have been the introduction of new ethical policies as well as new rules to hold up the industry as a ethically balanced one and also provide the best service to the elderly citizens.

Medical care for the elderly generation concerns itself with basic medical ethics such as giving respect to one’s autonomy, acting good for the benefit of the patient, not causing any harm to the patient and also treating every elderly alike, i.e. with same respect and care. However, it must be understood that the aged care is not only about caring for the medical health of the concerned elderly person. Often, the aged people need more emotional assistance than medical care. The professionals of the aged care industry should be well aware of their ethical codes while dealing with the old people (Lopes, Carter and Street 2015). As it often happens, the concerned professionals misbehave with the senior citizens out of impatience and lack of respect. This leads to the rise of various ethical issues within the aged industry. The industry professionals should be very careful about their ethical conduct as it is one f the basic pillars of the entire industry.

Conclusion:

The report can thus be concluded by saying that the aged care industry is one of the blooming industries of Australia. It not only provides proper care and support to the elderly Australian citizen but also does profit business out of it, which in turn helps in the economic growth of the country. The government of the country also actively helps in the industry by providing different policies and continuously enhancing them in accordance of the needs of the aged population and their families. Though there are certain drawbacks within the industry itself, it can be said that it is doing a good work in terms of taking care of the aged population. The industry is expanding in a regular basis, with the entries of new groups and companies. This happens to be beneficial for both the ageing population as well as for the country of Australia in general.

 References:

Anderson, J., Bernoth, M. and Croxon, L., 2017. Partnerships for learning and mentoring in aged care. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, 24(7), p.36.

Baldwin, R. and Chenoweth, L., 2015. Residential Aged Care Policy in Australia–Are We Learning from Evidence?. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 74(2), pp.128-141.

Broad, J.B., Ashton, T., Gott, M., McLeod, H., Davis, P.B. and Connolly, M.J., 2015. Likelihood of residential aged care use in later life: A simple approach to estimation with international comparison. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 39(4), pp.374-379.

Bupaagedcare.com.au. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: https://www.bupaagedcare.com.au/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].

Chenoweth, L., Merlyn, T., Jeon, Y.H., Tait, F. and Duffield, C., 2014. Attracting and retaining qualified nurses in aged and dementia care: Outcomes from an Australian study. Journal of Nursing Management, 22(2), pp.234-247.

Crettenden, I.F., McCarty, M.V., Fenech, B.J., Heywood, T., Taitz, M.C. and Tudman, S., 2014. How evidence-based workforce planning in Australia is informing policy development in the retention and distribution of the health workforce. Human Resources for Health, 12, p.7.

Duckett, S. and Willcox, S., 2015. The Australian health care system (No. Ed. 5). Oxford University Press.

Gao, F., Newcombe, P., Tilse, C., Wilson, J. and Tuckett, A., 2014. Models for predicting turnover of residential aged care nurses: A structural equation modelling analysis of secondary data. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 51(9), pp.1258-1270.

Hospitalhealth.com.au 2017. Ethics and Aged Care. [online] Available at: https://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/aged-allied-health/article/ethics-and-aged-care-863992681#axzz50eURE3tm [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].

Kaine, S. and Ravenswood, K., 2014. Working in residential aged care: A trans-Tasman comparison. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations (Online), 38(2), p.33. 

Liz Forsyth, R. (2017). Consumer Directed Care: Competing in aged care. [online] KPMG. Available at: https://home.kpmg.com/au/en/home/insights/2016/05/consumer-directed-care-reform-competitive-aged-care-landscape.html [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017]. 

Lopes, E., Carter, D. and Street, J., 2015. Power relations and contrasting conceptions of evidence in patient-involvement processes used to inform health funding decisions in Australia. Social Science & Medicine, 135, pp.84-91.

Nakanishi, M. and Nakashima, T., 2014. Features of the Japanese national dementia strategy in comparison with international dementia policies: How should a national dementia policy interact with the public health-and social-care systems?. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 10(4), pp.468-476.

Nusem, E., Wrigley, C. and Matthews, J., 2017. Exploring aged care business models: A typological study. Ageing & Society, 37(2), pp.386-409.

Radford, K., Shacklock, K. and Bradley, G., 2015. Personal care workers in Australian aged care: retention and turnover intentions. Journal of nursing management, 23(5), pp.557-566.

Renzaho, A., Polonsky, M., Mellor, D. and Cyril, S., 2016. Addressing migration-related social and health inequalities in Australia: call for research funding priorities to recognise the needs of migrant populations. Australian Health Review, 40(1), pp.3-10.