Residential aged care facilities may sound an unlikely setting for a modern revolution, but TLC Aged Care (TLC) CEO Lou Pascuzzi strongly believes it’s time for change. When he came to the residential aged care sector two and a half years ago, Lou saw that standards needed to improve. His background in primary care gave him ideas for expanding TLC’s service offering from solely residential aged care to providing a multi-faceted community healthcare service with aged care at its core.
Innovative Community Health Hubs
“I found that people living in residential aged care may not always be receiving adequate medical supervision. General practitioners and other medical service providers were becoming less interested in visiting aged care homes. They felt that the Medicare benefits did not compensate them for the travel and the time away from their practices. TLC’s Community Health Hubs provide an innovative solution for this problem,” says Lou.
TLC now has primary care medical centres integrated into our residential aged care homes. The TLC model has advantages for our residents, our medical professionals, and the local community.
“TLC now has primary care medical centres integrated into our residential aged care homes. The TLC model has advantages for our residents, our medical professionals, and the local community.”
The Community Health Hubs TLC has integrated into its aged care homes provide primary medical care to residents and the wider community. The hubs provide a range of services including general practitioners, chronic disease management, nurses, physiotherapists, pathology collection, tele-health, rehabilitation in purpose-built gymnasiums, prescription delivery services, retail health outlets, as well as other allied health services, like podiatry and dietetics.
Family friendly
Another way that TLC has improved its services is to make them more inclusive and provide them in an environment that is appealing for important time out with visitors.
“A key focus has been making our homes friendlier and more conducive to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, families, and the local community visiting their loved ones. We have incorporated appealing facilities such as cafés, playgrounds, and virtual reality cinemas into our homes. We have also expanded our resident lifestyle activities program, which is a critical service in the residential aged care space,” Lou says.
Ensuring everyone is fit and healthy
Keeping residents healthy and active requires that TLC maintains the fitness and wellbeing of its employees. Lou is proud of the programs TLC offers its staff to do just that.
“To encourage our staff and residents to lead a healthy lifestyle, state-of-the-art TLC Health Clubs gymnasiums have been integrated into our homes,” he says. “Membership of TLC Health Clubs is provided free to our staff and residents, along with personalised fitness programs, to ensure that they achieve the maximum benefits these hi-tech gymnasiums offer. In conjunction with TLC’s ‘100 Days of Health’ corporate health promotion program, this is a great way for TLC’s staff and residents to interact and focus on their health, promoting active lifestyle choices.”
Certified training for quality care
Recognising a need for more aged care resources, TLC launched its own registered training organization, TLC Learning, to deliver certified training to staff. Lou argues that “the quality and development of our team is paramount to the success of our organisation” and believes this training initiative has done more than fulfil TLC’s skilled workforce requirements. He says, “It has provided an option for existing workforce upskilling and contributes to TLC’s commercial sustainability.”
TLC Healthcare key facts
- Company name: TLC Healthcare
- CEO: Lou Pascuzzi
- Headquarters: Melbourne, Australia
- Number of employees: 1,300+
- Annual turnover: $116,000,000
- Industry: Healthcare & Pharmaceutical
