PlanCare’s Churchill and Florence AI assistants improve aged care delivery by enabling consistent funding decisions and proactive clinical oversight. Integrated into a self-management platform, they reduce administrative burden, enhance compliance, and support better client outcomes. It won the Technology Business category in the 2025 Future of Ageing Awards. Results were unveiled at a presentation dinner in Sydney on November 27, 2025…To view all of the results…
Founded in 2021, PlanCare has rapidly emerged as an innovator in self-managed aged care, launching services in 2022. Its Healthcare-at-Home platform is designed to give older Australians greater choice, control, and flexibility in how they receive support. These principles underpin the transition to the Support at Home program.
Central to this platform is a suite of AI-powered assistants, including Churchill and Florence, which enable PlanCare to deliver high-quality, scalable care while maintaining a personalised experience.
Churchill supports Care Managers by combining regulatory knowledge with real-time client data to deliver consistent funding guidance. Florence operates as a clinical oversight agent, analysing care data to identify early risks and improve outcomes.
Together, these tools sit within PlanCare’s broader digital ecosystem, including its online portal and Caretaskr platform, which allows clients to manage funding, track spending, and coordinate providers in real time.
Why it came about
PlanCare’s model is built on empowering clients to self-manage their care; choosing their providers, controlling their budgets, and tailoring services to their needs. However, this flexibility introduced operational complexity behind the scenes.
Care Managers were required to interpret detailed funding rules while supporting highly individualised client needs. This created inefficiencies and inconsistencies, with similar cases sometimes producing different funding outcomes.
Churchill was developed to address this challenge by embedding policy knowledge into an AI assistant that delivers consistent, transparent, and contextualised funding guidance. It ensures decisions align with both program rules and individual client circumstances, while still allowing Care Managers to apply professional judgement.
At the same time, PlanCare’s growth, alongside its model of engaging independent workers and providers, resulted in large volumes of shift notes and care data. While rich in insight, this data was difficult to analyse manually at scale.
Florence was created to solve this problem. By continuously analysing shift notes, it identifies emerging patterns and risks that may not be visible to human reviewers. This capability aligns with PlanCare’s commitment to delivering safe, high-quality, and proactive care, while supporting clients to remain independent at home for longer.
Importantly, Florence also improves data quality at the source. Its public-facing interface prompts workers to submit more complete and accurate notes, strengthening accountability across PlanCare’s growing network of providers.
Together, Churchill and Florence were developed to support a model where client empowerment is matched by operational precision, ensuring flexibility does not come at the expense of consistency or safety.
“Loved the concept of the AI agent names working on different aspects of care and operations. Real early adopters of AI. Great vision and bravery.”
2025 Future of Ageing Awards judge
How it works
Churchill and Florence are embedded within PlanCare’s integrated technology ecosystem, which includes its online portal and Caretaskr platform, providing clients and staff with real-time visibility over funding, providers, and care delivery.
Both AI agents are powered by large language models fine-tuned for aged care and designed to operate within Australia’s regulatory and data privacy requirements.
Churchill: Enhancing Consistency and Decision-Making
Churchill acts as a real-time decision-support tool for Care Managers. By combining policy knowledge with live client data, it delivers accurate guidance on whether services or items can be funded.
Its conversational interface allows Care Managers to query decisions, provide additional documentation, and receive transparent explanations. All interactions are logged, supporting compliance and audit readiness.
This capability aligns with PlanCare’s broader value proposition of providing “total visibility of funding” and structured support through dedicated Co-Care Partners, ensuring decisions are both informed and defensible.
Churchill also extends beyond compliance by recommending alternative supports when funding is not available, ensuring clients continue to receive appropriate care.
Florence: Proactive clinical oversight
Florence operates as a continuous monitoring system, analysing thousands of shift notes submitted by independent workers. By identifying trends across time, it detects subtle changes in client wellbeing—such as declines in mobility or cognition.
This aligns with PlanCare’s model of combining human support with digital tools, where co-care partners and Clinical Teams are augmented, not replaced by technology.
Florence’s public-facing functionality further enhances care quality by guiding workers to provide better documentation, improving both clinical insight and accountability.
Integrated and scalable architecture
Both agents are tightly integrated with PlanCare’s broader platform, enabling real-time data access and seamless workflows. Their architecture supports continuous improvement, allowing PlanCare to incorporate new AI advancements without disrupting operations.
Future developments will deepen integration between Churchill and Florence, enabling automated workflows—for example, triggering funding reviews when clinical risks are detected.
Evidence of success
Churchill and Florence have delivered strong outcomes across efficiency, quality, and scalability while reinforcing PlanCare’s broader service model.
Operational Efficiency
Churchill has reduced the time spent on funding decisions by over 200%, enabling Care Managers to focus more on client engagement. This supports PlanCare’s promise of providing personalised support through dedicated Co-Care Partners, rather than administrative overhead.
Florence has reduced clinical response times by 70% by automating the review of shift notes and surfacing risks proactively.
PlanCare’s platform is designed to help clients “get more from their funding” and remain independent at home. Churchill supports this by ensuring timely, consistent access to funded services, while Florence enables early intervention through continuous monitoring.
Compliance and transparency
Churchill’s audit trails and Florence’s improved data quality strengthen compliance with regulatory requirements, aligning with PlanCare’s positioning as a provider with strong governance and visibility over funding and care delivery.
Staff report reduced stress and improved confidence, while providers benefit from faster payments, clearer documentation, and fewer disputes.
Quantifiable outcomes:
- 200% reduction in time spent on funding decisions
- 70% faster response to health and well-being risks
- Reduced invoice disputes and delays
- Improved staff satisfaction and reduced burnout
- Early detection of client health risks
Churchill and Florence are not standalone innovations; they are integral to PlanCare’s broader model of technology-enabled, self-managed aged care. By combining AI-driven insights with human support and a flexible service platform, PlanCare has created a system that delivers both efficiency and personalisation.
As the sector transitions to Support at Home, this approach demonstrates how providers can empower clients while maintaining consistency, compliance, and high-quality outcomes.
