Leading change in a private aged care model
- Board focus: Yukana prioritised minimising risk throughout the Talius rollout
- Staff confidence: Training helped teams embrace the new platform
- Early benefits: Staff could locate residents faster and respond more quickly to alerts
- Proof: A live demonstration showed the new system working exactly as intended
After building its own private aged care model, retirement village operator Yukana faced its next challenge: implementing the systems needed to support it.
For Chief Executive Officer Chris Kelly (pictured top), introducing the Talius connected care platform required leading change across the organisation while ensuring the quality and reliability of care were never compromised.
Healthcare leaves little room for error, and Chris said that shaped every decision Yukana made throughout the rollout.
“One of our biggest barriers to change is the low threshold for any failure,” he said. “Knowing that failure can mean a person dies.”
That thinking extended to the board.
“The main request was, ‘Make sure you don’t increase the risk of failure.’”
Rather than focusing on new features, the organisation concentrated on ensuring the technology would support staff to deliver care safely and consistently.
Bringing people with you
Once the decision had been made, Chris said the priority became giving staff confidence in the Talius system.
Training, demonstrations and practical support helped answer early questions around usability and implementation.
As staff became familiar with the platform, the operational benefits quickly became clear.
Instead of spending valuable time searching the village after receiving an alert, they could immediately identify a resident’s location and respond more quickly.
“They got to see the benefits quickly,” Chris said.
“Their ability to find residents more quickly and not spend time hunting around the building quickly reinforced that this was the right direction to take.”
Seeing is believing
The turning point came during an early demonstration with residents.
Chris recalls asking a resident named Keith to press his call button while sitting in the fellowship room.
Instead of staff searching his unit before looking elsewhere, a care team member arrived within moments.
“Everybody was wowed,” Chris said.
For Yukana, it demonstrated that successful change comes from giving boards, staff and residents the confidence to embrace a new way of working.
This is the second article in a four-part editorial series produced in partnership with Talius, exploring how retirement village operators are responding to changing resident expectations through leadership, care innovation and connected technology. In the next article, Yukana’s clinical team explains how technology is helping support clinical judgement and improve resident outcomes.
Missed Part 1? Read The decision that changed Yukana’s care model.
