Home care providers must step up as older Australians take control of home care packages

With more than 3.5 million Australians currently over the age of 65, the needs of our rapidly ageing population are set to place even more pressure on an aged care system already scrambling to meet demands.

The majority of older Australians wish to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible, and home care providers play an important role in delivering the services that can help them to achieve that outcome. 

Australian seniors living in 2020 have far greater control of their home care package funding and planning than previous generations, and home care providers must adapt to meet their clients’ changing needs.

The home care providers that will flourish in the current environment will be those that can deliver customer-focussed and cost-effective services to their clients, delivering reliable outcomes with seamless and safe services. 

To achieve this goal, aged care providers must be data driven in every aspect of their businesses, from human resources, to finance, to rosters, and care plans. Those providers offering paper-based systems or clunky interfaces will be at a marked disadvantage.

Data, efficiency vital for home care providers

Leading healthcare platform, Lumary, has launched new functionality specifically tailored to Australia’s home care providers. In 2015 the early stages of the Lumary product went into development.

Lumary Care Management (CM), the platform which now includes home care package (HCP) functionality, aims to help providers deliver the services that customers need in the most efficient and effective way. 

The platform has been designed to free up carers’ time, giving them more hours to spend with clients providing quality care.

Lumary CM gives providers a competitive advantage by helping them to consolidate multiple data sources and improve the efficiency of tracking, reporting and claiming.  

Lumary CM provides a packaged solution of multiple systems developed for aged care providers, and integrates them into its own platform to deliver a secure and reliable single source of information for carers, management and clients to use. 

How can Lumary CM help? 

Lumary CM’s healthcare platform can assist home care providers in a number of ways, including the following.

• Lumary CM automates as many processes as possible. Users can view budgets, client leave, assessments, care plans, unspent funds, rostering of staff – and more – all on the one platform, reducing the administrative burden on both providers and staff.

• Lumary CM’s systems are easy for carers  to update while they are ‘on the move’.

• Carers can also easily capture travel details, which is helpful for both providers and for the carers themselves.

• Through Lumary CM, providers can track their workers in the field. They can see where any worker is at any given time, not only ensuring that workers are ‘doing the right thing’, but also ensuring each worker’s safety – an important consideration for carers working in the community.

• Lumary CM helps providers ensure they are meeting regulatory and compliance obligations.

• Data is trackable, anytime, anywhere, and Lumary CM delivers meaningful data insights, a key factor in the delivery of quality care.

• The Lumary CM systems also provide more transparent interactions with clients, delivering more collaborative care, and improved client and carer engagement.

• Lumary CM has a leads management function, ensuring the ability to manage leads, enquiries and referrals. 

• One of the most useful features of Lumary CM is the system’s ability to facilitate communication between all the various elements of the system – including finance, accounting, human resources, communications, scheduling, rostering, customer relationship management, medication management and payroll.

Lumary CM allows home care providers to deliver seamless and tailored services to their clients, and enables data-driven decisions. As older Australians take greater control of how their home care funds are spent, their provider’s streamlining and efficiency, ease of use and flexibility will be more important than ever.

For more information or to request a demo please go to www.lumary.com.au.

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Image: sturti, iStock.