Using Excel Spreadsheets to Support Evidence-based Practice

A quality management system (QMS) is concerned with the structures and processes needed to ensure uniformity and standardisation to maximise efficiency; minimise exposure to risk; monitor client requirements and satisfaction levels; ensure compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements; and provide a structural framework from which performance can be evaluated and continuously improved. In its application, a QMS needs to facilitate evidence-based practice. One format to achieve this is through use of Excel spread sheets. For service providers who are unfamiliar with the Excel program, the BRandA Resource Package includes a detailed, illustrated Instruction Guide, together with 20 Excel Registers that have already been formatted for ease of use.

A quality management system does not operate in isolation. It provides the structural framework for achieving stated quality objectives through integrated systems for quality planning, quality control and quality improvement that operate in a continuing cycle. There is an essential synergy in these three core principles, which has been designed into the structure and purpose of BRandA’s Excel Registers.

As planning tools, they record what the organisation plans to do, and through the Document Control and Records Control Registers, how that information is shared across the organisation. As tools for quality monitoring and control, they provide evidence of ongoing systems review in implementing policy directives. The Registers offer a record system for performance monitoring and reporting of compliance with regulations, staff licensing obligations, mandatory staff training, complaints trend analysis, preventive maintenance, contracts for control of outsourced products, preferred suppliers, clients’ care plan reviews, and document and records control. The Registers have been configured to automatically flag any due dates for compliance monitoring, the month prior to the required activity. These controls also enable providers to identify non-conforming processes promptly, so that corrective action can be planned and implemented to minimise risk. Where monitoring and control processes identify non-conformance issues, the Continuous Improvement Register demonstrates the improvement actions taken.

Service providers who feel they already have well-developed policies and procedures in place, have still benefited from purchasing the complete BRandA Resource Package and using it as a reference tool when reviewing their QMS system against the Community Care Common Standards . If you are simply seeking to strengthen your records for evidence-based practice consider purchasing the QMS Registers Instruction Guide separately. Included in the purchase will be 20 Excel Registers, formatted for immediate use.

Follow the links to the complete BRandA Resource Package and QMS Registers Instruction Guide
to order your copies.

Evidence-based Practice

The BRandA Resource Package has been specifically designed for community service providers to support them in implementing a quality management approach to service planning and delivery. In structure and content the Package is cognisant of the core Standards compliance requirements applying for the sector, and of the primacy now being given by policy makers, researchers and industry leaders to evidence-based practice, a philosophy that has been embraced and advocated by quality management practitioners for many years.

Due to the intangibility of service quality, there had been a traditional tendency by funding bodies, policy makers and service providers to focus on objective, measurable, “efficiency” indicators, such as numbers of consumers or unit costs, or economies of scale.   Of significance, the adoption of a regulatory framework for residential aged care in Australia that was outcome oriented (1987) placed emphasis on the effectiveness of the quality system, rather than mere efficiency indicators, and represented a watershed in international approaches to regulation for residential aged care services. The Aged Care Reform Strategy (1997) built upon this and also included in the regulatory framework protection of residents’ rights. A recent major industry reform was the development of the Community Care Common Standards (2009), with associated compliance obligations for all community aged care providers. In common with the Accreditation Standards for residential aged care, the Community Care Common Standards promote a social model of health, with an outcome orientation, and an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

With “effectiveness” measures now being given primacy, policy makers, researchers and industry leaders are emphasising the need for evidence-based practice. Managing for quality in service organisations presents a particular challenge because service quality is inherently subjective and personal, depending on the expectations and perceptions of the consumer. An essential ingredient for evidence-based practice is monitoring and measuring of outcomes and/or outputs, to enable demonstration of results, and to provide objective baseline data for planning future improvements. 

From a planning perspective, evidence-based practice means a focus on using sound research data to inform decision-making and care planning. It also means the development and testing of new service delivery models that may reshape our thinking and establish new benchmarks for good practice, to stimulate industry improvements.

From an evaluation perspective, there is increasing acknowledgement of the need to apply this quality management principle of evidence-based practice to the monitoring and control of service delivery. It is through maintenance of evidentiary records that providers are able to demonstrate the results of their practice to third parties (auditors, assessors), in compliance with the requirements of the specified Standard. Records provide verification of practices.

The BRandA Resource Package offers over 100 examples of record formats from which service providers can build a strong foundation for evidence-based practice.View the complete BRandA Resource Package here