Carepage Happy Life Index validation and impact on NPS

Start Date

1 June 2021

End Date

19 July 2022

Project Participants

CarePage, University of South Australia

Status: Completed

Tags: aged care, consumer engagement, consumer reported outcomes, COVID-19, data analytics, quality and safety, quality improvement, quality of life (QoL), residential aged care, sector benchmarking

Opportunity 

As Australia’s aged care sector increasingly focuses on person-centred care and transparency, there is growing demand for meaningful measures that reflect what matters to residents and their families. Beyond clinical indicators, consumers also want sector-wide benchmarks for resident experience, consumer choice and quality of life outcomes.

Launched in 2019, the Happy Life Index (HLI) measures quality of life (QoL) indicators that aged care providers can have a direct impact on, such as food quality, staff presence, care quality, friendliness of staff, activities and lifestyle, environment & cleanliness, and management. This research aimed to validate this existing measurement tool to report on and improve quality of life in aged care. 

Project Objectives  

This project set out to establish the reliability and acceptability of the Happy Life Index (HLI), derive insights from HLI responses before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide an evidence base to support the adoption of the HLI across the aged care sector.

The project demonstrated that the HLI is a reliable and internally consistent measure of quality of life in residential aged care. Large-scale analyses of resident and family responses revealed important differences in perceptions during COVID-19 restrictions and generated new insights into quality-of-life drivers within aged care settings.

The project provides an evidence-based foundation for consumer-centred quality measurement in residential aged care. By validating the HLI, the research supports greater transparency, informed consumer decision-making and continuous quality improvement across the sector. The findings also help aged care providers understand how service experiences influence resident quality of life and offer insights relevant to future aged care reform and quality benchmarking initiatives. 

Integrity, Excellence,
Teamwork and Authenticity

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