Designed to Encourage
Community Involvement
Ray Kelleher
Executive Director – Property
& Infrastructure
• Mercy Health – Who are we
• Past Design Philosophies
• New Design Philosophies
• Community Participation
• Mercy Design Evolution
• Mercy’s Future Direction
• Our Model of care
• Questions
Presentation Overview
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Mercy Health provides compassionate care for people in Victoria,
southern New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the
Australian Capital Territory.
• Residential Aged Care – 22 sites (1,900 beds) across Vic, NSW, QLD
and WA
• Acute Public Hospitals in Victoria
• Sub Acute Public Hospitals in NSW
• Home and Community Care across a number of states
Mercy Health
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Where we came from:
• Square block layouts, institutionalized hospital model
• Gated community type feeling, barriers to the community coming
in, some physical
• Large communal dining and lounge room spaces
• Large, enclosed nurses stations
• Poor access to meaningful outdoor space and activities
• Limited accessibility options for residents family
Past Design Philosophies
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Paradigm shift
Open, welcoming, dementia and child friendly spaces
• Dementia spaces built around the design principles for people living with
dementia
• Intergenerational play groups
• No nurses stations
Flexible community driven spaces (consumer driven wish lists)
• Wellness services
• Gyms, exercise options
• Multi-faith spaces
• Community usage
• GP and Allied Health Services
• Education usage
• Resident family involvement
New Design Philosophies
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New Design Philosophies
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Streetscape shop frontage
• Dry cleaning
• Hairdressers
• Maintenance workshops
• Café
• Gift shop
Volunteer Engagement
• Resident involvement
• Planting and gardening activities
• Handyman groups
• Animals
Participation occurs when consumers, carers and community members are
meaningfully involved in decision making about health policy and planning,
care and treatment, and the wellbeing of themselves and the community.
Mercy Health Initiatives
• Community Advisory Committee
• Consumer Engagement Framework
• Feedback Framework
• Residents and relatives meetings for each aged care site
• Governance structure to CAC
• Focus groups
Community Participation
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Mercy Health Initiatives - cont
• Community network analysis projects with council involvement
• Council and community operated information sessions
• Aged Care design brief
• Staff consultation process
Mercy Health Policy and Plans
• Consumer Engagement Policy
• Partnering with Consumers - Property and Infrastructure Policy
• Community Engagement Plan 2013-17
• Consumers on Committees Procedure
• Policy links to state Government level strategic direction for consumer
engagement
Community Participation
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Open Planned LayoutsSmaller household environments
Designs that encourage
independence
Our Aged Care Design Evolution
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Our Aged Care Design Evolution
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Outdoor Environment Landscape options include vertical
gardens, water features, animal
enclosures and dementia specific
safe interactive features
Development of streetscape concepts being introduced at our upcoming
facilities. They include hairdressers, maintenance workshops, café and laundry
services to encourage the community to be involved with our residents
A design environment that creates micro communities within our sites, ie social
groups, schools, day care, children's activities, GP and allied health services
Animal enclosures are being integrated into all future designs
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Our Aged Care Design Evolution
Flexible Design built into spaces
• Community/multi-faith spaces
• Activities/quiet spaces in open planned living
• Kitchenettes, serveries and dining/lounge spaces to every 15 bed pod
• Targeted designs that look at allowing movement by dementia residents
• Simplistic design concepts that allow other sections to be made more or
less secure depending on future needs
• Connecting bedrooms for couples
• Points of differentiation in bedroom offerings
• Accommodation offerings for residents families
Our Aged Care Design Evolution
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How we are linking design to our Model of Care and what levels of
engagement we are aspiring to:
• We have developed a comprehensive Aged Care Design Brief
• Dementia redesign projects across our sites
• We now have a clearer process and lines of engagement for our
consumers
• Community engagement guidelines have been established, pre
and during construction
• Expanding the links Mercy Health has to a range of community
advisory groups
Our Future Direction
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Community
Partners
Family
Care PartnersHolistic Care
Environment
Resident
Philosophy and
principles of aged care
Teaching and
learning
Research and
evaluation
Mission and
values
Our aged care model of care
Model of Care
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Model of Care
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Model of Care
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Model of Care
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Model of Care
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We view engaging with our residents, their families and the public as a
normal way of doing business and the integrating of this into our
organisational culture continues to evolve as we explore ways of enhancing
and delivering improved outcomes from these interactions.
Mercy Health, through staff, policy and behaviors have provided the
framework for improved design outcomes and we welcome this with our
upcoming projects.
Thank you, happy to take any questions
Conclusion
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