Pathways through aged care services: a first look

Analysis of care pathways provides information that is useful to both policy planners and service providers alike. The Pathways in Aged Care (PIAC) cohort study linked aged care assessment data for a cohort of 105,100 people to data sets showing use of five main aged care programs and deaths over four years. Of particular interest in terms of care pathways is the smaller new-pathways cohort of 77,400 people who had not previously used aged care services that required an aged care assessment for access. This report presents the first findings from analysis of the new pathways cohort, investigating common care pathways, time to entry to permanent residential aged care and time to death after the first assessment for use of aged care services.