“SOLUTION TO THE NURSING & ALLIED HEALTH BOARDS OF AUSTRALIA REQUIREMENT FOR ALL NURSES & ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONALS TO COMPLETE 20 HOURS OF CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PER YEAR AS PART OF THEIR REGISTRATION”

From the desk of: Nick Heywood-Smith Adelaide, Australia

Dear Allied Health Professional or Nurse,

Continuous Porfessional Development is the means by which members of the profession maintain, improve and broaden their knowledge, expertise and professional competence and develop the personal and professional qualities required through their professional lives. (Physiotherapy Board of Australia website).

It is now a requirement of all nurses and allied health professionals to complete 20 hours of continuous professional development per year as part of their registration. The Nursing & Midwiferey Board of Australia and the Allied Health Boards of Australia now fall under the one Act. This is known as Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act (2009).

Standards have now been developed and approved by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council on 31 March, 2010 pursuant to the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (2009) with approval taking effect 1 July, 2010.

All nurses and allied health therapists practising in Australia must meet the continuing professional development (CPD) standards and must maintain a portfolio document your participation in CPD each year. CPD must be directly relevant to the nurse of therapist's context of practice and must maintain or import their competence to practice in their chosen field.

Requirements of the Standard differ slightly across the professions but all require to keep written documentation (portfolio) of CPD that demonstrates evidence of completion of a minimum of 20 hours of CPD per year. (Nursing & Midwifery Board of Australia).

Each Board's role will include monitoring the competence of nurses and allied health professionals. They will therefore conduct annual audits of a number of these professionals in Australia each year. The Standard commenced on 1 July, 2010 and the Board has agreed to review this standard at least every three years.

The onus will be on members to show how they have met these criteria and when you renew your registration, you will be expected to make a declaration that you have met the standard and completed the required CPD. If you are unable to make a declaration that you have met the CPD standard, the Board may refuse to renew your registration, or may grant renewal of registration subject to conditions.

Members can choose from three different schemes which reflect the different ways in which professional development is accessed. These categories are:

• Self Directed Learning,
• Institution Based Learning and
• Special Group or Workplace Learning.

Although this system is monitored on a points basis, the focus remains on learning outcomes and ensuring these meet the needs of the individual.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the
confidence that you were meeting all your
Continuous Professional Development needs?

The W&L Education solution offers a total solution for care service providers that delivers aged care specific training and skill development in a customised and flexible model delivered through a website portal.

We will ensure you will be absolutely job ready and Continuous Professional Development compliant.

Are you a nurse who wants to reduce the constant challenge of where to find your required Continuous Professional Development courses?

Your time is valuable and the requirements to complete 20 hours of CPD can disrupt your 'work/life balance'. Also the disruption to quality care services and workplace operation efficiency can be damaging.

The W&L Education Library offers you the opportunity to participate in Continuous Professional Development education that is now a requirement of your registration.

W&L's industry leading aged care specific education can also help maintain skills currency for you, reducing the erosion of job skills over time through delivery of a regularly updated website library of new practices and aged care issues.

W&L Education member will allow you to access ongoing CPD education in your home 24/7.

Does your current training meet all your needs?

W&L offer a vast selection of learning products that caters for most people's learning preferences. Online learning enables student centred teaching approaches because every student has their own way of learning that works best for them.

W&L Education has a team of highly qualified allied health professionals with diverse and substantial experience across education and training, aged care, disabilities and community health. These professionals have developed all of the content on the website.

Do you find it hard to find a training provider that specializes in Aged Care?

One of the great benefits of membership with W&L Education is our vast understanding of aged care in Australia.

Membership to the W&L Library allows you direct access to the W&L Education website from any internet computer. Complete the CPD in your own time when it suits you.

The advantage of the extensive aged care specialty experience of W&L ensure you maintain your clinical knowledge and skills. Bring developments in aged care practice and legislation directly to you through W&L Education Membership and lead the way in completing your 20 hours of Continuous Professional Development for your registration.

Here at W&L, we are excited to be able to offer this training online because it allows us to solve one of the biggest problems in aged care in Australia.

The problem in all Aged Care facilities in Australia is poorly educated staff! (including Nurses & Allied Health)

There are many reasons for this, but some of these are:

• Registered nurses who are new to aged care and have come from other specialised fields
• Allied health therapists who just do aged care to "top up" their private practice work
• Directors of nursing with no understanding of what the Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) is
• ACFI nurses with no understanding of the business rules
• Nurses and allied health therapists with a poor understanding of issues associated with ageing and how to manage them
• Nurses and allied health therapists not being able to identify pain in residents and complete accurate pain charts
• Nurses and allied health therapists not understanding how to document correctly for the aged care standards and accreditation agency
• Allied health therapists with a poor understanding of the ACFI, accreditation and the business rules.

The problem is that in all aged care facilities in Australia, the turnover of staff can be quite high. Directors of nursing change to other facilities, registered nurses become agency staff and allied health therapists move on. That is why...

Everyone in Aged Care is frustrated because...

• Staff retention rates are low
• facilities are considerably underfunded
• there is poor skill and knowledge of the staff looking after the elderly clients
• there is very few companies that specialise in aged care
• the industry is heavily regulated putting huge pressures on senior staff and management during validation and accreditation
• Facility costs are increasing
• Agency staff are constantly required - pushing up costs
• Documentation requirements in aged care are absurd!
• Residents are not receiving the treatments/care that they deserve (or have an assessed need)

When I first worked in aged care facilities, I saw these frustrations first hand. It was nice to be able to take some of the pressures off the facility and their directors of nursing by "looking after" all their allied health.

But still, I was not happy with the care...

Wellness & Lifestyles started to develop their own training which we delivered through powerpoint presentations on site. This was great and the sites loved it. The care staff were becoming better educated and hence their safety improved, the care improved and ultimately, this led to a better quality of life for the residents. It is frustrating when you know you could provide better care but just can't due to lack of educational resources. What are your frustrations?

• Are you sick and tired of not understanding the ACFI and how to document in aged care?
• Have you tried other training but they have not delivered or let you down?
• Do you feel that there is a better, more efficient way to deliver training on aged care specific issues?
• Are you finally ready to discover the secrets others are using to increase funding, reduce expenses, reduce staff turnover and..
• Improve quality of care to your clients?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, don't worry because...

It's All About To Change For You

If you'd like to know how you can start improving the quality of life of your clients in aged care while increasing your government funding in your aged care facility and reducing your expenses at the same time... then this is going to be one of the most important messages you'll ever read.

Here's why:

My name is Nick and I am the founder of W&L Education and W&L services. Up until recently, I was working in aged care facilities as a physiotherapist educating nursing and care staff in all that I had learnt about the industry and how to improve safety, funding and efficiencies at their facilities. I got a reputation for being able to turn facilities around from failing accreditation and being on sanctions to becoming hugely profitable and passing their validation and accreditation with flying colours. But before I tell you my secrets on how to do this at your facility and the SHOCKING TRUTH I discovered while working at many of these facilities with many of the not for profits and private facilities...

Let me tell you my story...

I was working in aged care just like you. I am a registered physiotherapist and Director of Wellness & Lifestyles Australia (W&L), a business that I developed with my wife Nikki that specialises in aged care and provides mobile allied health services to clients and facilities across Australia.

Since November 1998 when I completed my Bachelor of Applied Science in Physiotherapy from the University of South Australia, I worked in a variety of health care settings around the world including five different countries. This taught me many things, but I always knew that I wanted to help people in whatever work I chose to do.

My work overseas has included working for the National Health Services (NHS) throughout Great Britain in both inpatient and outpatient settings; owning and operating a private massage and rehabilitation business in Kitzbuhel, Austria over two winter ski seasons; consultancy physiotherapy work in public and private facilities in Vancouver and Banff, Canada, and private physiotherapy services provided to Ed Hommer, a double below knee amputee, during a summit attempt of Mt Everest in 2001 in Tibet.

Following five years overseas, I returned to Australia and commenced work for Sportsmed SA in both inpatient and outpatient settings for a period of approximately eight months. I learnt very quickly that to be able to impact more people's lives, I needed to start my own business and get a team together. Wellness & Lifestyles Australia received its first contract in January 2004. It began with a single physiotherapist (myself) providing mobile allied health services to aged care facilities and a part-time marketing consultant (Nikki). It has now grown to a company with over 130 therapists and staff with the full scope of allied health services including physiotherapy, podiatry, speech pathology, occupational therapy, aromatherapy, naturopathy, massage, dietetics, audiology and educational training.

W&L is a market leader in the provision of mobile allied health services to facilities in Australia and service over 10,000 aged care beds. Now instead of only seeing 20-30 people per day in a physiotherapy clinic, we can have an effect on ALL these people's lives. W&L's current clients consist of aged care facilities, the intellectually and phyiscally disabled, community health services, day therapy centres, home care package providers, public and regional hospitals and private clients in their homes. It is our vision to become the benchmark for aged care therapy services and education in Australia.

W&L is an accredited provider of allied health services to the Southern Adelaide Health Service, the Transition Care Program, and Disability SA. We have been finalists in the Telstra Business Awards in 2008, 2009, in inBusiness Magazine's Fast Movers for 2007, 2008 and 2009 and recently achieved the BRW's Fastest 100 list for 2009. In 2010, I was also awarded the Ernst & Young's young entrepreneur of the year for the central region.

Wellness & Lifestyles Australia (W&L), and its management team, have a strong appreciation of the need to continually upgrade their professional knowledge and skills to ensure that the contribution they make to the health care of patients and is of the high standard.

One of the things I found from working in the aged care industry was that the problem most aged care facilities faced, was the lack of highly trained and educated staff to perform the quality care needed for their clients. So my team and I quickly got together and brainstormed ideas on how to help more people provide better quality care to aged care residents. After tirelessly sitting in the lab for 6 months, we have put together what we believe is the most complete solution to health care training in aged care available to nurses and allied health today. Introducing our new W&L Education Library. Included in our library are...

Six different techniques combined to make this one of the best learning experiences you will ever encounter

You see, before putting any of this training material together we consulted with an NLP expert (Neuro Linguistic Programming) to find out the best way to deliver such an in-depth course in a way that was guaranteed to help people understand the information quickly and easily, whilst at the same time ensuring that they retained as much of it as possible over the long-term.

The answer was simple and confirmed what we had already suspected.

To achieve maximum success we needed to deliver the material using multiple formats that took advantage of as many different learning methodologies as possible.

Sounds like quite a mouthful, but translated into plain English, it simply meant that we needed to include:

We wanted to deliver the best experience possible and so didn't want to cut corners and just provide you with a single type of learning experience, which is why we've made extensive use of the seven learning techniques described above.

Here's a quick recap of each of those techniques, explaining how each technique is used to maximum effect to ensure you get maximum value from the course.

Full Motion Videos

'The W&L Training Library' uses a mix of over the shoulder and real person video to bring the training to life in front of your eyes.

This engaging mix provides the best platform possible for helping you to understand all the topics covered.

It makes complex things easy and entertains you whilst you learn.

There's never been a better way to learn how to provide quality care for your clients.

Over-the-shoulder Tutorials & Powerpoint Presentations

'The W&L Training Library' shows you how to provide high quality care for your residents in step-by-step detail.

We'll be there every step of the way to ensure that every aged care issue and topic is covered in detail.

Let the experts show you exactly what you need to do, to provide the highest quality care for your aged care clients, using a variety of different techniques.

Quizzes & Hands-On Practical Exercises

‘The W&L Training Library' reinforces your learning with high quality interactive quizzes and hands-on practical exercises.

By testing your knowledge at the end of each module you'll see just how well you're progressing.

The hands-on practical exercises help cement your understanding as you progress through each module.

Interactive Posters

'The W&L Training Library' comes with amazing and highly informative interactive posters that add an extra dimension to this amazing training resource.

With these professionally designed posters, you can print them off and hang them around in your facility or clinic for constant reinforcement of the training taught.

Printable E-Books and Articles

'The W&L Training Library' also comes with printable e-books and articles including hot tips compiled from facts and information on each of the 200+ facilities that we service and visit for validation and accreditation.

Over 100 hours of professional quality
training that you can do to meet all your
Continuous Professional Development requirements...

So, let's take a look at some of the topics included in the W&L Training Library...

Keep in mind that it doesn't matter if you are a nurse or any allied health therapist, you can benefit from the knowledge of other care specialists in different fields.

NOTE:
With CPD for allied health therapists and nurses, onus will be on you to show how you have met the criteria of your board when you renew your registration. You will be expected to make a declaration that you have met the standard and completed the required CPD for that year. If you are unable to make a declaration that you have met the CPD standard, the Board may refuse to renew your registration, or may grant renewal of registration subject to conditions.

One of the professional development categories under Continuous Professional Development is self directed Learning. The W&L Educational library would fall under this category. This system is monitored on a points basis and 1 hour equates to 1 point. The focus remains on learning outcomes and to ensure that these meet your needs, you will be required to keep a log or portfolio of your training. For this we recommend the using the templates in the CPD E-Book.

So what exactly do you get?

When you invest in The W&L Training Library you get instant access to our sophisticated, state of the art learning platform, complete with ALL the learning materials you need, to deliver high quality care for your aged care clients and skyrocket your facility's results.

Each module is available to you at the click of a button, and the great thing is that the system can even send reports on your usage of the library.

The library contains 100s of training materials, each has been professionally produced and includes:

If you struggle with the test don’t worry as the results will help you to see the areas you need to focus on to progress.

But here’s the really great thing ...

You have access to the library for a WHOLE YEAR! That’s right. A full three-hundred-and-sixty-five days.

This means that you can take as long as you need to work your way through it. Everyone learns at a different speed and we wanted to ensure that absolutely everyone was catered for.

Another benefit to having a full year’s access to this training material is that you can re-visit it whenever you like during the year. If you need a refresher on any particular topic just log-in, go to that module, and work your way through it another time. You are completely in control!

So, let me quickly recap on what you get

Let me tell you a little more about the support, as that’s incredibly important.

What happens if I run into problems when
I am going through the course?

When you buy this training membership, you become part of The W&L Training Library community and, as such you are not alone. We provide full technical support, year round, to all our valued members.

If you find yourself struggling at any point, simply drop us a line and we'll come back to you with a detailed response, to help you to keep on track with your learning.

Unlike other support organizations who promise to reply within three days we make a pledge to always reply within twenty four hours on work-days, and usually you’ll see a response in your inbox within just a few hours.

Our support team is renowned for the high level of support we deliver, but as a valued member, your support requests are guaranteed to go right to the front of the queue where they will be dealt with as a top priority.

Ok Nick... it sounds terrific, but how much is this incredible course going to set me back?

 

Thanks for your investment, and I'll see you in the members area!

All the best,

P.S. Remember, you have 61 days to try out our training library. If for any reason you are dissatisfied with our level of service, you can request for your full 100% money refund.