Australian NFP automates to optimise care

Australian not-for-profit (NFP) The Disability Trust (The Trust) has selected the Boomi Platform to better understand the unique needs of its participants and optimise overall care.

The Trust comprises 1800 employees and care staff who provide a range of services to support more than 4000 people with disability to live the life they choose. This includes life skills training, independent living and accommodation assistance, social and networking opportunities, sports and recreation, and employment help. To better personalise its care services, The Trust staff and carers needed a secure, singular view of operational, employee and participant information. As part of its migration from bespoke and siloed on-premises technology to the cloud, The Trust deployed the Boomi Platform to eliminate business siloes, integrate business-critical systems and centralise data from its applications.

“A key criteria from our board is putting data into carers’ hands to ensure they provide the best support possible,” said Ian Treweek, Head of ICT at The Disability Trust.

“We want them to have all the information they need in one place so they can make ideal decisions around care and better meet the unique needs of each participant. We also want to ensure our executives and managers have real-time data for their regions and teams at a click of a button.

“While we always had that information, it was scattered across multiple systems in various formats. As we move to the cloud, Boomi provided a simple way to get our apps talking to each other so employees will have one clear view of up-to-date and accurate information, giving them the ability to provide personalised support to each participant.”

The Trust uses Boomi’s integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to connect systems, including a care management system (CMS), Microsoft Active Directory, risk management, finance, human resources and sales, plus a broader range of bespoke and industry-specific tools. It also introduced Boomi’s Master Data Hub (MDH) and will be migrating employee and participant information into a secure data warehouse.

Once the project is complete, support workers will have a comprehensive understanding of participants during all engagements, including the ability to log details of their needs, which will be available to all teams. This will help enhance initiatives like The Trust’s digital enablement strategy, whereby people with disability are granted access to activities like simulator driving before taking the wheel of a car, given the ability to attend video calls for personal or professional purposes, and partake in virtual reality (VR) training and gaming.

The move has also had a tremendous impact on The Trust’s ability to fulfil obligations under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) to which it transitioned five years ago, and streamline ongoing reporting requirements.

“A lot of organisations in our sector use ad hoc solutions, leaving workers to manually punch in data to multiple systems. It’s a lot of unsustainable rework. With seven core applications that all need to be intertwined, having Boomi instantly connecting data saves many hours of data entry while avoiding duplication through automated cross-checks,” Treweek said.

“The potential time workers get back can be dedicated to where it’s needed most: providing care.”

Before Boomi, The Trust relied on legacy, point-to-point integrations, which required extensive coding and management. In some instances, there was no integration capability, risking inconsistencies and errors resulting from manual data entry.

The Trust selected Boomi following a competitive tender featuring six organisations. After a series of pilots, Boomi was chosen as it offered the best return on investment, and didn’t require additional headcount to handle technical complexities and coding. These were critical factors for an NFP like The Trust, where every dollar saved can be reallocated to add value in support of its participants.

The Trust also plans to leverage Boomi’s API and API Management capabilities to establish uniform processes for employee onboarding. The goal is to create a seamless process that accurately captures information and eliminates hours of data entry across various teams when new hires enter the organisation.

“Data not only optimises decision-making, but holds the answers to questions organisations may not even know to ask. Without a centralised view of this asset, companies are forced into workarounds that delay service delivery, and risk blowing out costs, which is particularly detrimental to NFPs,” said Nathan Gower, Director, Australia and New Zealand at Boomi.

“With Boomi connecting data, people and devices, management teams gain a clear picture of participants’ needs and operations, allowing them to focus on their support roles with confidence that the information they have at hand is reliable and up to date.”

Image credit: iStock.com/NicoElNino