Software vendors embracing interoperability through collaboration

When the Aged Care Industry Information Technology Council (ACIITC) released its report on provider digital maturity levels within the aged care sector it highlighted a couple of low-scoring areas where improvement is needed: innovation and interoperability.

There are clear obstacles preventing providers from increasing their strengths in both, such as financial considerations, time and resourcing and workforce capabilities. For these reasons and more, digital transformation in aged care can be a difficult task. 

Increased collaboration is one way to overcome those challenges, though, and there is a noticeable shift in how providers and software vendors are working together. It’s all for a good cause, too. 

Annette Hili, AlayaCare General Manager, ANZ told hello leaders that vendors need to facilitate interoperability to help aged care providers achieve their goals.

“Interoperability gives providers the flexibility to choose the different products they need to meet whatever outcome they’re hoping to achieve in their transformation. They need to know their software vendors are going to make it easy to enable that so they don’t have to do too much middle work,” Ms Hili said.

“In the ideal world, we want to find the one product that does everything but the problem with that approach is you’re a jack of all trades, master of none. But if you can choose the best product for the job and your software can talk to one another, that’s often the optimum solution to maintain high-quality care and be innovative in your transformation.”

Home care services providers are among the aged care organisations best suited to address their existing software and systems ahead of the introduction of Support At Home (SAH) as there is a 12-month window before Home Care Packages (HCP) roll into SAH, and at least three years until Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) follows suit. 

The postponement of home care reforms has undeniably afforded invaluable time to providers who need to enhance their technology offerings to better support staff and clients. 

Greg Satur, CEO & Co-Founder Hayylo, explained to hello leaders that interoperability has been hard to achieve in the past, but the tide is turning as providers take an optimistic approach to confronting their challenges.

“There are a lot of poor integration experiences out there and that leads to confusion, challenges in operating and processes, and customer expectations that you can’t meet. I think a best-in-breed approach leveraging interoperability is super important for our sector and we’re starting to see a range of different providers adopt the best-in-breed approach,” Mr Satur said.

“We’re starting to see decisions being made for new ways of working and people are taking more calculated risks and decisions for their operations. It’s great to see because that’s how we can move the needle forward.”

Vendor collaboration sparks a new era

Increasing amounts of collaboration are taking place within the aged care technology space as software vendors partner up to deliver ready-to-go integrations. This in itself is a huge benefit for providers as it means there’s less legwork when pairing existing systems with new ones. 

Among the newest partnerships is a collaboration between aged care operator BaptistCare, care service platform provider Hayylo and AlayaCare. Essentially, BaptistCare has adopted Hayylo’s customer service platform and client portal which is integrated with AlayaCare’s OpenAPI software to ensure all data collected through the consumer-facing app is seamlessly accessible for Government reporting or internal use. 

“Gone are the days where you say ‘No, we don’t talk to other systems, you have to use us for everything’. You can’t operate that way anymore,” Ms Hili said.

“We think interoperability and extensibility are both important parts of the future, particularly with all the ongoing changes that are happening in the aged care sector. Being able to partner alongside other vendors to get the necessary outcome for the aged care provider is the way of the future in tech.”

These kinds of partnerships also reflect a noticeable shift in focus, as highlighted by both Ms Hili and Mr Satur. With software providers looking to provide systems that are best-in-breed and not all-encompassing, they are focused on specific elements such as consumer feedback, invoicing automation or scheduling. 

But rather than designing standalone systems with no flexibility or adaptability, they are interoperable and often come with out-of-the-box integration. This reduces the administrative burden for staff while ensuring products are fit for purpose for longer periods of time.

“Providers don’t want to implement a project for it to be out of date in a month or two. We need to take on that responsibility and it’s extremely important to make sure there’s limited double handling and more cross-platform efficiency so our sector can move to best-in-breed versus a one-stop shop for everything,” Mr Satur added.