Residential aged care providers can now preview their quarterly star ratings before they are published on the My Aged Care website following recent releases of the Department of Health and Aged Care’s new Government Provider Management System (GPMS).

GPMS has been built using Salesforce technology and went live in December 2022 to support the new star rating system.

It is being looked at as a potential whole of government system that will reduce the amount of times providers need to register with different departments, including aged care, disability care and veterans’ care.

DoHAC’s first assistant secretary for digital transformation and delivery – aged care reform, Fay Flevaras, told a webinar today that the core GPMS platform was released in December to support the star ratings previews.

The star rating system has been developed by the research consortium behind the Aged Care Data Compare project and consists of a graded system ranging from one to five, measuring four sub-categories: compliance, residents’ experience, staffing and quality measures. Other data sets will be added in future.

Ms Flevaras said the core GPMS platform was released in December and was officially launched to external providers on the third of April. “And on the 11th of April, the star ratings preview period also commenced using GPMS when providers were granted access to the new star ratings system,” she said.

Emma Cook, director of the quality and assurance division at DoHAC, said GPMS was a flexible platform underpinned by modern database technology to enable aged care providers and government to interact efficiently, thereby ensuring that Australians have access to up to date information on the quality and safety of aged care.

“These systems are critical to get the information and that information really has three core functions around providing transparent information and supporting choice and quality in aged care,” she said.

“It can go to providers in support of that use of information, efficient collection and use of information to inform improvement, and it can go to government for similar reasons to allow clear monitoring, measurement and improvement of aged care at a system level.”

Organisation administrators have been contacted with instructions on how to access the preview through the GPMS, which uses verification systems such as the myGovID digital identity or with the VANguard federated authentication service.

The department has also recently announced that it is decommissioning the fax number for My Aged Care on July 31. Referrals can be made through the HealthLink GP eReferral solution and the Make a Referral tool on the My Aged Care website.