The proactive mindset spearheading allied health’s widespread impact

A proactive approach to problem-solving underpins the leadership style of one of the industry’s newer Chief Executive Officers, with Plena Healthcare’s Graeme Johnston eyeing more opportunities to support aged care providers with allied health in 2025.

Mr Johnston stepped into the role in 2024 after holding several other leadership positions within the organisation during his 16-plus years working in allied health. 

He knows first-hand how the constant pace of change has challenged aged care and forced the industry to adapt or be left behind. With the Support at Home program and the new Aged Care Act coming into effect midyear, adaptation will be critical in 2025. 

For Plena Healthcare, this includes taking their knowledge from the residential aged care space and developing initiatives that can be used in community care. 

Amidst the reform journey, there is a familiar call to place a greater focus on allied health.

“The overall aim of aged care is to keep residents as active and independent as possible, yet it’s counterintuitive that allied health has seen a reduction in the care minutes it’s provided across the industry. However, there have been some good steps recently, like introducing allied health care minutes reporting,” Mr Johnston said.

“More allied health involvement improves the quality of care and reduces the burden of care on providers. A resident receiving increased levels of allied health will likely be more physically able and remain independent for longer. That will reduce the burden of care and reduce costs.”

Overcoming challenges

Workforce limitations have impacted every corner of aged care, including allied health. One of the recurring challenges has been the lack of local professionals available in regional, rural and remote settings. Funding regularly dictates access as well. 

“There’s no ring-fence funding around allied health. It incorporates into the broader funding bucket the providers have to work with. That makes it difficult for providers to decide what they prioritise,” Mr Johnston said. 

“There are a lot of decisions that providers need to make when they choose to refer or engage in certain services. If more detail can be given to the providers about what they should or shouldn’t provide, that will promote allied health services.”

Demand also plays a role with some services required more than others. Additionally, Mr Johnston said providers may be unaware of the full scope of certain professions and therefore, do not seek critical allied health services as often.

This lack of understanding is why Mr Johnston would like to see the Department of Health and Aged Care look at properly defining things such as proactive reablement. 

“Education is required in the industry to define reablement. Reablement isn’t just reactively referring to allied health and then getting allied health involvement,” he explained.

“Reablement has to be about proactive input, getting risk assessments in place early, identifying potential health issues and then putting more of a proactive well-being approach in place.”

Looking to the future

While there are ongoing workforce issues within the aged care and healthcare sectors, Plena Healthcare combats much of this through scale and flexibility. 

Plena’s national representation allows it to support providers in regional and rural areas. Telehealth adds to the efficiency, something the organisation would like more providers to engage with.

“Some within the industry still wonder whether telehealth is suitable. We know from the research and existing programs that telehealth is an effective way of delivering services,” he said.

“Where providers engage with telehealth, we can back ourselves to deliver a service quickly and effectively, complemented with face-to-face visits. If we’re going out regionally, working with different providers in that location enables us to utilise our team effectively so they can visit multiple homes.

“This can help our team engage with the communities in those locations and offer a greater level of support over time.”

Support at Home is also viewed as a perfect opportunity to increase allied health access in the community. Mr Johnston is hopeful that it will form part of an all-round approach to improving wellness for older people who want to live at home for longer.

“In the community space, the goal is to try and embrace a wellness model of care and move away from the traditional thought process of reacting to an incident. We want providers to think of allied health as wellness support,” he explained. 

As for residential aged care, additional quality indicator reporting requirements may challenge some providers. However, there is every reason to expect it could lead to better analysis and benchmarking of allied health in the residential aged care space. 

“Providers need to look at their allied health services closely and determine whether they are providing the minimum, or if there are opportunities to expand their service offering. That would put them in good stead from a care minute reporting point of view, but it also has a flow-on effect to creating better outcomes for residents and reducing that burden of care,” Mr Johnston added.