Streamlining IT and business processes at Carrington Care

(l-r) Raad Richards, Chief Executive, Carrington Care and Darren Gossling, Managing Partner, Rohling International

Since Carrington Care overhauled the digital systems that underpinned its seniors’ living and residential care, workers have had more time to focus on people instead of paperwork.

The not-for-profit retirement village, aged care home and home-care operator simplified and streamlined its IT and business processes over a five-year period in a partnership with consultants Rohling International, gaining a more efficient and productive system.

Carrington Care chief executive officer Raad Richards said the digital transformation of their processes was a major benefit for residents and workers.

“The staff have more time to spend with our residents instead of sitting behind a desk completing paperwork and clinical records and plans,” he said.

“All that time is with the resident, the updates are done at the point of care, so there is more time spent with them by the staff.”

The highly regarded operator – based on a 400-acre property outside Camden, 60km southwest of Sydney – formed a partnership with Rohling International in 2016 to put in place a digital framework to future-proof its operations and create a foundation for growth.

With its proud history of care for more than 130 years, they wanted to stay relevant and efficient amid an environment of increasing change and complexity.

Mr Richards knew the aged care industry in general had been slow to use IT systems and he wanted to be on the leading edge, acknowledging it would create future benefits.

He said the aged care specialists at Rohling International – which focuses on strategic business and IT planning and solution delivery for aged care, allied health and disability service providers – were able to pinpoint the best systems for their desired outcomes.

“The people who work there [at Rohling International], their skills and expertise in managing that complex change has resulted for us a very successful program,” he said.

It started with an initial overhaul of Carrington’s financial IT system, then progressed to overall business planning, an infrastructure refresh, a new clinical care platform for residential aged care and home care, the implementation of Epicor customer relationship management software, and a procurement system.

All the systems are integrated to allow them to speak to each other, adding greater productivity and benefits.

By next month, an integrated rostering and payroll system will also be in place for its 550 staff.

Image courtesy of Kylie Lyons.

“So when a home-carer goes out in the field to visit an ageing Australian, they bring their device with the Procura system with them. They enter information about their care and any additional services required directly into the system from the client’s home.”

“Likewise, for residential aged care, a clinical system tracks the medication given and allows for condition updates.”

These systems have allowed Carrington Care to move to a growth footing and plan for an expansion of its facilities and services.

“Ours is a growing aged care organisation in the space of aged care and retirement living,” he said.

“That sort of expansion, we required those new systems and it has provided us with a lot of efficiencies in terms of staffing skills and staffing time spent on archaic systems. It simplified the processes for us and made our organisation more efficient.

“Now we can rely on financial and operational data that we get and we know it is accurate. Those systems are assisting us greatly.”

Rohling International’s managing partner Darren Gossling said the Carrington Care partnership has been successful to achieve their values-based customer experience.

He said as consultants to the aged care industry, Rohling International had “blueprints” for effective business processes that could be adjusted to suit the desired outcome of different businesses.

“Once we develop a roadmap and the strategy with the leadership, it isn’t just the technology, it is also the organisational change required within the aged care provider,” he said.

“It’s about making sure communication takes place, the training in there and then you’ve got your technology component as well.”

Part of it is choosing and implementing the right software for the customer, ensuring it fits with their other systems to boost their overall productivity, sometimes with the assistance of their custom-made middleware systems.

“We know the software vendors in the aged care space and we work for our client, in the best interests of the client,” he said.

“We keep the budgets under control and we keep the vendors under control so our client know exactly what we’re doing, how long it is going to take, and how much it is going to cost.”

Sponsored by Rohling International

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