Calculating our Award Winners
Posted on : Jul 26, 2023
Calculating our Award Winners
For the past seven years, AgedAdvisor NZ has recognised those villages and care facilities where residents and family have expressed high levels of satisfaction with the service provided. Unlike any other awards, the AgedAdvisor winners are based on independent reviews and ratings from people just like you. The annual awards celebrate exceptional aged care and village providers - which in turn help to provide families with an authentic way to shine a spotlight on the real stars looking after you or a loved one. AgedAdvisor staff travel throughout New Zealand mid-year, presenting these well received accolades to deserving facilities who have worked so hard to serve and care for our elders. You can check out the previous winners on our website here.
“Unlike any other awards in the aged care or village sector, the AgedAdvisor winners are based purely on independent reviews and ratings from customers throughout New Zealand,” explains AgedAdvisor’s Founder, Nigel Matthews. “We launched the awards to identify and celebrate exceptional aged care and village providers as well as provide families with another measure to identify facilities that will take great care of their loved ones. The winners received consistently high ratings from residents and their families and represent the top tier of senior care or retirement village providers in New Zealand.”
To qualify for an award, facilities must receive a minimum of three reviews within the previous 12 month period and have five or more reviews within the last three years to qualify. AgedAdvisor does not charge for entry into the awards, and provides freepost forms for residents to post in, ensuring no facility is disadvantaged. “These winners not only demonstrate a commitment to providing the best care possible, they’ve set the bar high for others to follow.”
The awards include finalists and winners in North and South island locations, plus a nationwide award. The size categories are:
Aged Care:
- Small (less than 40 beds)
- Medium - Large (41 - 101+ beds)
Independent Living Retirement / Lifestyle Villages:
- Small (up to 80 beds)
- Medium - Large (81 - 251+ beds)
So, with all these positive reviews rolling in, how do we accurately calculate the winners when the larger facilities receive more reviews and votes due to the number of residents? When developing these awards, we decided a method was needed to smooth results so that a 20 bed facility had the same chances as a 120 bed facility. The answer lay in consultation with the University of Canterbury, where working together with AgedAdvisor they developed a series of algorithms to calculate the ratio and mean score of reviews over a 12-month period. Facilities with more residents were aggregated by the number of ‘reviews to residents ratio’ to reflect a true score across all villages.
For those of us who enjoy a few stats, the 2022/23 year included some interesting results with 85% ticking ‘would recommend their village or care facility to a friend’, and another 85% rating their village 4 & 5 stars: great to excellent. For popular describing words, we couldn’t beat ‘Friendly (14.41%)’ and ‘Staff’ (24.28%) - perhaps these two descriptors could give villages a hint as to where to spend their budget in recruiting the right people who will be popular with residents!
Given the success of our Retirement Village and Care Awards, looking ahead, we are beginning to plan to include other deserving review sectors which continue to expand on our website. These include health, legal, financial and funeral. Watch this space!
If you live in a fantastic village or you visit family or friends in somewhere truly special - then share your experience today - your review will help decide who is this year's best.
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