Quality, Safety and Risk Forum

Welcome to Country

Welcome and Introduction From the Chair

Keynote: Strengthening quality, safety and accountability in a new Aged Care Era

• How is the Government supporting providers to implement the strengthened Quality Standards and meet higher expectations for safety, clinical governance, culture and risk management?
• Understand how the Commission is embedding transparency, accountability and consumer rights, and what providers must prioritise in the first full year of the new Act.

Prediction of quality indicators in residential aged care at the individual level

• Learn how predictive modelling using large-scale benchmarking data can identify residents at higher risk of falls, pressure injuries, unplanned weight loss, and functional decline.
• Understand how individual-level risk prediction can support earlier intervention, inform care planning, and help providers prioritise preventative strategies while recognising current data and modelling limitations.

Panel: Bringing the new quality standards to life in residential care

• How can aged care providers translate the new Quality Standards into consistent, meaningful practice across governance, daily care, clinical oversight, IPC, and resident experience?
• Gain insight into how providers can redesign systems, documentation, reporting, and workforce capability to consistently meet measurable outcomes and uphold older people’s rights.

Designing systems that prevent harm and ensure safe, high-quality care

• With greater requirements for leadership accountability under Standard 2, how can providers ensure governing bodies have visibility of clinical risk, incidents, complaints, and performance gaps?
• Learn about practical reporting frameworks, data dashboards, and board-level oversight models that strengthen safety and quality culture while reducing exposure to non-conformance.

Interactive Breakout Sessions

• Join us for 4 small-group roundtables looking deep into the latest challenges and solutions. These small group sessions allow for more dynamic, engaging and discussion-based conversations and are always a highlight of the forum.
• Roundtable A – presented by Visual Care & PayCat
• The Real Cost of Getting SCHADS Wrong (and How to Stop)
• Workforce costs are the biggest line on most aged care P&Ls, and SCHADS sits at the heart of them. We'll share how one provider reduced overtime spend from $8,000 to $1,500 per pay period, and what it takes to make award interpretation a daily discipline rather than a payroll-time problem.
• Shiam Ahmed, Head of Product and Design, Visualcare
• Garth Belic, Founder & CEO, Pay Cat
• Roundtable B – presented by Zipline
• Are you ready? Workforce Compliance Benchmarks from the top aged care providers
• We've completed Workforce Readiness assessments with some of Australia's largest aged care providers and the results are revealing. In this session we'll share benchmarking data across five core pillars. You'll see where the sector is performing and where it's falling short. Then we'll open it up to the room, share what's working and tackle the hardest compliance challenges in aged care together.
• Nonny Evans, Chief Revenue Officer, Zipline
• Tanmay Bhola, Chief Product Officer, Zipline
• Roundtable C – presented by Lenexa
• What Are We Measuring Too Late? Moving from Reactive Reporting to Proactive Risk Prevention
• Will Yang, Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Lenexa
• Ajit Ravindran, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, Lenexa

Polypharmacy: Symptom or system failure?

• Are we truly treating the person - or simply managing behaviours through medication? What are the risks of high polypharmacy for people with cognitive decline?
• Learn best-practice approaches to reduce overmedication and improve dementia-related symptom management

Dr Simon Pedzisi

Head of Dementia Care, Opal

Panel: Embedding quality and compassionate palliative care into Aged Care Systems under the Strengthened Standards

• How can providers integrate a proactive palliative approach into everyday care to meet new expectations for quality, safety, symptom management, and family communication under Standards 5 and 6?
• Gain insight into the governance oversight, workforce capability, and early-identification systems needed to deliver safe, person-led, dignified care at end-of-life, and how leaders can build staff confidence in high-risk, emotionally complex situations
• Understand how to make palliative care effective for common comorbities, including dementia, cancer and chronic pain

Enhancing daily work practices through AI: Practical insights and challenges

• Showcasing common-sense AI technologies that have a direct, positive impact on staff productivity

Paul Basso

Head, Data Analytics and AI, Uniting Age Well

Managing non-conformance: Preparing for audits, responding proportionately, and preventing recurrence

• With higher expectations and increased measurability across all the new requirements, how can organisations prepare for audits and respond effectively to minor and major non-conformance?
• Gain insight into practical audit readiness, evidence collection, root-cause analysis, corrective action planning and implementing the Commission’s Supervision Model proportionally to risk

Lana Richards

Chief Quality Officer, Catholic Healthcare

Creating learning cultures that drive continuous improvement and safer care

• How can providers create psychologically safe, supportive environments where staff feel confident to speak up, learn from mistakes and contribute to quality improvement?
• Gain insight into learning systems, safety huddles, reflective practice, mentoring, and leadership behaviours that rebuild trust, compassion and high-quality care

Chairperson’s Closing Remarks