The Disability Support Industry Doesn’t Need Another Piece of Software, It Needs an Operating System

If there’s one thing I am passionate about, it’s the contribution that great technology can make to people’s lives. I love it. Beautifully crafted products that impact how people connect, engage and get stuff done these days excites me endlessly. Even still, there are some industries where things are still hard, where transformational products are yet to make an impact. It’s the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

The disability support industry is a perfect example. Delivering great support can be challenging. Doing it consistently to support tens, even thousands of people across services and geographies is a herculean task. And yet, the technology supporting the industry is not making this any easier. Not easy enough, anyway.

It takes incredible efficiency to deliver the NDIS successfully, with little room for gaps or human error. But that rarely matches with the realities of managing an organisation. Providers are delivering the best possible services but face tightening margins, driven by a complex web of regulatory requirements and pricing guidelines that change constantly.

Sadly, in many cases, it’s simply too complicated to do efficiently.

Most providers find themselves bringing together an expensive suite of applications to help; a Client Management System for record-keeping, a CRM for communications, payroll and finance systems for invoicing, and rostering and time attendance software for workforce management. Some of these applications integrate between each other, many don’t. These applications are mostly ‘systems of record’ that need administrator input. Even if they have basic ‘integration’, they all have different passwords, different user interfaces and are edited by different people and teams. They create records of events after they’ve happened, replicating the information across systems. From client records, booking and billing information, incident reports and… you get the picture.

Supporting the NDIS process with systems that have little or no automation of workflows can’t deliver the outcome organisations or customers need — this siloed approach leaves too many gaps and ruins efficiency. The impact is that key information isn’t being accessed by the people who need it most, at the time that they need it. And when people delivering the services don’t have access to information, the burden falls back to the customers to fill in these gaps. As we know all too well, this can be distressing for people and it erodes the relationship they have with their service providers.

It’s not the kind of customer experience organisations want to deliver. But it can be fixed.

Product builders and user experience designers spend their time thinking about ways to create human interactions that elevate the human experience. This is what inspired me to develop GoodHuman.

Because what the industry doesn’t need is another piece of software. It needs an entire operating system. A single platform that works seamlessly to power every piece (and person involved) inside a disability support organisation. An ecosystem that connects every workflow through its lifecycle.

There are mobile and web applications out there that help people find services, but none of them helps people engage with their existing service providers. That is where the operating system approach changes everything.

In an operating system, customers are linked through every workflow. The mobile app that lets a customer book a service is linked to the same system that manages your workforce. It can match this person with one of your employees that is best suited to deliver the service. That staff member can check-in and out of their shift, keep notes and records to update other employees managing their services, even inform the customer’s family of what was provided.

And here is where it completely changes the efficiency of how a service provider organisation operates: An invoice for this service can be generated instantly and issued without error because the system knows exactly what to bill based on the most current NDIS price guide. And the customer (or their service manager, because they are also connected) can approve the invoice through the same app, without waiting for the mail to arrive. Suddenly a process that took teams of people hours, weeks, even months, is done automatically and the organisation gets paid a heck of a lot faster.

An operating system approach delivers information to everyone who needs it when they need it. This means that support workers, administrators, managers, participants, legal guardians and even families are all sharing information on one platform. NDIS plans, notes, goals, funding, service agreements, revenue and cost data — all connected in real-time with easy controls to manage privacy and access. Anyone can view and interact with information that’s contextually relevant to who they are and what they need at any given moment.

An operating system that connects people who want care and support to those who provide it is a big part of my vision for how I see the future of disability support services. It’s about doing away with all the friction that is getting in the way of the NDIS delivering the best possible outcomes for both customers and their service providers.

As I wrote earlier, it’s something I believe in deeply and I can’t talk enough about. If this has piqued your curiosity and you would like to chat more about our operating system approach, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either myself or the team at GoodHuman.