The Role of Technology When Providing Person-Centred Services

Significant changes to disability policies have shifted at all levels of Government across Australia and New Zealand over the decades. Service providers have moved away from institutional, outdated approaches towards more community oriented service provisions.   

Instrumentally, advancements in technology are prerequisites and we have accommodated this, as we will lay out.  

Where we’ve been – Australia  

Pre-NDIS was less inclusive for people with disabilities to participate meaningfully in the community and be involved in their own care.   

“Australians with disability have significantly worse life outcomes compared to others or to people with disability in similar countries.”  

Quoting a line from the Strategy (The National Disability Strategy 2010-2020), highlights the deficits that were prevalent across Australia. The Strategy provided a ten-year national policy framework for improving life for Australians with a disability, their families and carers.    

Further change occurred following the commencement of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (NDIS Act), which established the Scheme (NDIS) and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).  

With new NDIS requirements, Service providers were desperate to continue operations. In order to understand their service delivery cash flow, and accurately predict their forecast, whilst continuing to manage their staff, software vendors entered the market. They were time, task and transaction-driven.   

Already mature across Ireland and the UK, Aspirico saw an opportunity to present iplanit, a truly person-centred software solution, to complement the Australian market in moving towards choice and control for individuals. Aligned with similar objectives of the NDIS, a partnership with the National Disability Service (NDS) in 2016 was established.  

Where we’ve been – New Zealand  

The Ministry for Disabled People works with agencies and Governments to create a true partnership between themselves and the disability community, which drives ongoing transformation of the disability system in line with the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) approach. This approach was developed in 2011 when a group from the disability community presented its vision and principles to Government. The transformed system aims to ensure disabled people and their families have greater choice and control in their lives.  

Rolled out nationally, the principles of EGL focus on how disabled people would like to live their lives. This includes early intervention, ease of access to services, self-determination, being person-centred, mana-enhancing, and capable of building and strengthening relationships between disabled people, their whanau (family) and community.  

iplanit was identified as a suitable product with extensive pre-developed software coding that was well aligned with these principles. The success of iplanit across New Zealand has been due to its unique configurability, placing the person supported at the centre.   

Since 2014, iplanit has grown across 50% of the NZ market, with three of the four largest service providers adopting iplanit, making it their own and rolling it out to 10,000+ people across both islands.   

Where we are  

Service providers have evolved through the experience of various stages, adapting considerably with the help of the available software capabilities   

The Australian disability market is saying:  

• We have our rostering and staff management services embedded  
• We have our finance system and payroll system integrated   
• We understand our cashflow and forecast  

Where we are going   

It is time for people supported and their families to be backed by a meaningful, purposely built software product that is relationship driven without feeling transactional.  

Service providers and software vendors owe it to people supported and their ‘circle of support’ to be transparent, and to provide ease of access to their own support plans and care support information.  

Our unique offerings 

‘Person centred support’ is widely used by all software providers.  

Join Chanelle Blair and Thomas Due at our next Webinar, to learn how the role of technology is key when providing real person-centred services.  

This webinar will demonstrate how iplanit standard software capabilities can be used to provide tailored support to each person, and how the configuration of values can provide powerful personal data.  

We will include the portal, calendar, support task, goals, staff qualification and more. 

In a consumer driven market, such as the NDIS, iplanit will set your organisation apart from the competition.

Click here to register for this free 30-min webinar on The Role of Technology When Providing Person-Centred Services on Tuesday March 8th. Alternatively, copy this link to your browser: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7354031166585334283 

As an international CRM software provider focusing on relationship co-production, person-centred inclusion and coding logic, Aspirico has been awarded as an innovative software developer for more than a decade.