Clinical Services Manager Heather Brunton shares how eCase helped St John of God Hauora Trust unlock much needed operational efficiencies, address potential clinical risk and increase visibility across all sites.

Key takeaways include:

• Accelerated the group’s digitisation of client information, enabling real-time access to a single-client record across all sites.
• Unlocked efficiencies which have streamlined operations enabling deployment of resources to care-focused roles.
• A reduction in time spent on administration enabling a better experience for residents and improved access to important, up-to-date information for their families.

A leading provider of disability, youth and social services, St John of God Hauora Trust supports people living with physical or neurological disabilities. The group has locations across New Zealand and a dedicated care team of over 300 people.

With a vision to provide healing, hope and a greater sense of dignity to those in need, they provide residential and respite care, community home facilities, and community and youth services. In 2021 they released a five-year strategic plan focused on five key pillars: people, service excellence, service profile, strengthening culture and optimising processes. To help meet these goals, the group were searching for ways to optimise their operations and transform care.

The Challenge

Heavily reliant on paper processes and administrator’s time, the team were experiencing operational inefficiencies and potential clinical risks. Manual tasks were time consuming and prone to errors, with administrators spending hours organising files and printing paperwork.

“We had concerns about clinical risks associated with a paper based medical record. It was draining resources and becoming costly, with a lot of replication,” said Clinical Services Manager Heather Brunton.

“It was taking valuable time away from residents and care, with our team filling out multiple bits of paper and adding notes to whiteboards to ensure everything was recorded.”

The group had an additional challenge: visibility across all sites. Teams struggled to access resident information, creating further operational and clinical risks. Without a centralised client management system, tracking our community homes needs and giving clinical support was difficult.

“Clinical and business risk concerns were one of the predominant reasons we started to search for a solution. For me, another focus was freeing up time for those front-facing people to provide day-to-day care – not time-consuming admin.”

The Solution

St John of God approached a number of potential software vendors in New Zealand and Australia for a solution. It was eCase’s purpose-built care platform that caught their attention, with their tools built for operational and clinical efficiency a key interest.

Automation, smart scheduling and resource allocation would optimise care-facing team’s time and enable more time spent on care with residents.

Now deployed across all sites, the wider team are loving the platform and have fully embraced it – even staff who weren’t comfortable with technology. Moving all client records into eCase’s centralised platform, St John of God has all care history in one place. As well as reduced operational and clinical risks, it’s giving teams confidence and reassurance on the job.

“The team worked hard getting all the older records in, and now we have a single-resident view. Once the team saw how simple it made things, it was easy to move away from a paper-based system,” said Heather.

“The platform has really increased our ‘time to care’. It’s freeing up time across our teams for day-to-day care and giving them access to all the information they need to provide accurate advice and quality care.”

“The support workers now have more time to actually spend with our residents, spending less time on daily admin tasks and getting that valuable time back.”

The eCase team were with St John of God for each step of the implementation, providing advice to maximise their investment and increase staff engagement. With some team members unfamiliar with technology, training and education were key to the rollout.

“The project team from eCase were really good and supported us with education and making sure we’re getting all we can from it. Our Training Consultant was fantastic!” said Heather.

Results and Outcomes

Since eCase’s implementation, Heather shared they’ve seen both financial and business benefits. Admin burdens have dropped, streamlining day-to-day operations and driving productivity. With less time on paperwork, the team has been able to downsize administration and redeploy staff to more care-focused roles.

“These efficiencies have been a game-changer, and we’ve saved money by reducing the amount of full-time admin staff required at each site. Now, our team can spend more time with our residents and provide quality care,” said Heather.

“Our clients and their families like being involved in the process, and it’s given them reassurance about the quality of care and knowing we have all the right information. Being able to go through lifestyle plans and history has been a really powerful tool,” said Heather.

The team is looking forward to taking advantage of more of eCase’s capabilities in the future. Auditing and reporting are another area the team are excited to leverage more of moving forward, enhancing insights and improving client care.

“The most common feedback we get from our team? Why didn’t we do it sooner! The clinical team love the easy access to information and feel-reassured knowing that if they get a call from our community home support workers they can simply log in and get the information they need instantly.”

“It’s given them confidence at work, knowing they can give more accurate and timely advice. Reducing clinical risks in the process.”