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

2

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

3

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

4

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

5

New Design Philosophies

6

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

7

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

8

Open Planned LayoutsSmaller household environments

Designs that encourage

independence

Our Aged Care Design Evolution

9

Our Aged Care Design Evolution

10

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

11

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

12

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

13

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

15

Model of Care

16

Model of Care

17

Model of Care

18

Model of Care

19

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

20