Home Care Packages are available for older Australians 鈥�with鈥� complex care needs but still want to live independently in their own homes, providing access to personal and clinical care鈥� services鈥�. Traditionally, aged care provider models have offered limited flexibility, choice, or control to home care participants. Existing models are also often associated with manual processes and high administration costs, reducing the amount of resource鈥�s鈥� and funding spent on actual support and services.听听

HomeMade implemented 麻豆原创 BTP, a process 鈥�that鈥� took 12 months, working with partner Bourne Digital to design, develop and deploy an intuitive, automated, self-service portal. Now 6 months on, the portal has boosted the efficiency of processes and workflow management and provided greater transparency in terms of service provision. HomeMade is also now able to offer more flexibility to participants looking to choose and access a variety of services and support, giving them more control over plans, budgets, and spending. This is demonstrated by a 9-day reduction in the time i鈥�t鈥� takes to onboard new participants and by a 50 per cent reduction in reimbursement processing time.听听

HomeMade鈥檚 new, automated portal also helps to reduce administrative overheads associated with Home Care Package management, with participants saving more than $5,000 annually on average in management fees.听

鈥淗omeMade鈥檚 vision is to transform home care in Australia, and we are continuously building our capabilities 鈥� whether that鈥檚 teams, processes, or technology. Leveraging 麻豆原创 BTP has allowed us to create a solution that better supports older Australians in need of care and given us an ex鈥�c鈥�iting and innovative platform that will help us grow鈥�, said Laura Westhorpe, General Manager, HomeMade.听听

鈥淏y implementing 麻豆原创 BTP HomeMade is able to offer faster and more transparent care options to older Australians and their families鈥�,鈥� while also reducing the money spent on admin fees so that more resource鈥�s鈥� can be put towards improving their quality of life. The work done together with HomeMade and Bourne Digital demonstrates how next-generation technology can have a powerful positive impact when it comes to improving people鈥檚 lives.鈥�听

鈥淚鈥檓 also proud of how our technology is supporting HomeMade to continue to grow and move close to achieving its vision of transforming home care in Australia,鈥� continued Damien Bueno, President and Managing Director, 麻豆原创 Australia and New Zealand.听听

鈥淏ourne Digital partnered with HomeMade to apply design thinking to build a scalable, secure and highly intuitive portal solution. 麻豆原创 BTP was a fantastic platform that was setup to accommodate one portal for multiple personas including: aged care recipients, HomeMade customer service and the service providers. It has been an amazing opportunity to partner with a forward-thinking organisation like HomeMade.,鈥� said Selim Ahmed, CEO & Founder, Bourne Digital.听听

Visit the 麻豆原创 News Center. Follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at .听

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As technology remains critical in keeping people safe and connected, the key focus for all hackathon teams was addressing the impact of COVID in real-world scenarios. Runners-up of the event, Team , presented the judges with CovidSafe Building Access Management Solution 鈥� a cross-industry resource for managing employee OH&S.

, Microsoft Practice Lead and Solutions Architect for Bourne Digital, explained, 鈥淚n the initial stage of hackathon, the whole team came together to come up with a lot of ideas, but the main challenge facing a lot of organisations was around COVID. We interviewed some of our clients and those in the company, their main concern was how to help employees return to work while keeping things safe and secure, implementing the COVID-safe protocols.

鈥淎t the time, all businesses were operating ats a risk with COVID and needed to implement control measures to manage those risks. They also needed to assess any new changes that arrived because of COVID, for example, customer aggression, the unusually high work demands at the time, and also the difficulties in work isolation.鈥�

Bourne Digital鈥檚 CovidSafe Building Access Management Solution uses thermal-screening technology to support facial recognition and temperature checks. This identification data passes through authentication via Face API and a backend ECC system to determine whether employees can be permitted into the office.

鈥淥n the Microsoft side, we used a series of servers hosting in the MSN Azure Cloud,鈥� Barry explained. 鈥淎ltogether, the servers provided the functionality around facial recognition, which was a key function of the system. The key server, a real in-demand prototype, is something that we call Face API, which is part of the collective service 鈥� it鈥檚 the AI surface service in the Azure Cloud. It can do a lot of things, like image recognition, voice recognition, and facial recognition as parts of its function.

鈥淭hat server is built together with other services also hosted in Azure, like Azure AD, which is the world鈥檚 most popular identity management service and stores all the user information, such as name, ID, and password. It can also be used as an identification portal for external services. All this together with Face API as a strong backbone, provides a solid solution to these safety challenges.鈥�

According to Barry, thermal screening provides two primary functions. 鈥淭he first function was to collect the photo of the user for other applications 鈥� it鈥檚 the same as when you go through customs at the airport. This also saves your facial information to the backend and sends this information to Face API, which will match your identity from Azure AD.

鈥淭he thermal screening is also responsible for capturing the temperature from the user without the user having to actually contact anything themselves 鈥� no need for a fingerprint or to enter a password. It鈥檚 just through the thermal screening.鈥�

Ben Kemal, General Manager of Southern Region at Bourne Digital noted that the team used their hackathon entry to develop a solution for internal use. 鈥淯sing the Microsoft Power Apps platform, they created a desk-booking solution that they鈥檙e using to managed desk space in our office 鈥� especially with the restrictions around Australia in terms of how much capacity you can use. I was proud that the team could take a solution from the hackathon, build upon it, and convert that to a solution that we could implement for ourselves and potentially for our clients.鈥�

Barry believes this kind of solution will have numerous applications across different organisations and industries, providing more intelligence and convenience to accessibility. 鈥淚 think traditional security, such as physical access cards and passwords will be replaced with biometric security assets like facial recognition 鈥� it鈥檚 just a matter of time.

鈥淐OVID has sped up that evolution. From a business perspective, it鈥檚 given much stronger justification for organisations to fund these kinds of changes. And there are really good values that can be provided through this project as this kind of accessibility has gone from something good to have to almost an essential requirement.鈥�

Last year鈥檚 麻豆原创 and Microsoft hackathon not only helped developer teams become more familiar with the latest technologies and techniques available; but it also provided them with real-world experience in addressing critical challenges that we all face through this pandemic. The event encouraged more collaboration between 麻豆原创 and Microsoft experts from across different organisations and functions, all working to improve the way we work and live.

To understand more about the innovations presented at previous hackathons or to learn about the upcoming

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Taronga Conservation Society Australia has ditched many of its paper-based administration processes after deploying a new staff experience app underpinned by 麻豆原创鈥檚 cloud platform.

The society has been using the app, dubbed StaX, for the last year to simplify and centralise the day-to-day admin needs of the more than 600 employees at Sydney鈥檚 Taronga Zoo.

Developed by Melbourne-based CX firm Bourne Digital, the app allows staff to perform key transactions like submitting听food orders for animal and听HR requests, as well as receive alerts.

With a largely mobile workforce, spread across 21 hectares, it has enabled staff to spend more time in the field focusing on wildlife, particularly in the wake of the bushfire season.

Taronga project manager Mark Kemp told听iTnews听the web app was built to remediate core processes like finance, payroll and HR, which were previously paper-based.

鈥淓ssentially, what we were looking to do is align things more with our digital technology strategy at Taronga, and try to approach things with a digital-first approach,鈥� he said.

Kemp said the app, which integrates with other services like Microsoft Azure AD and Atlassian鈥檚 Jira, was part of a broader core business systems uplift project with 麻豆原创.

鈥淭he reason why we chose to go that route is because we鈥檙e also using the S/4 HANA database for our 麻豆原创 upgrade project too,鈥� he said.

鈥淪o it was a bit of marriage between how the database could be utilised.鈥�

While the app鈥檚 development was relatively quick, with the first release in the wild two months after the project began, Kemp said much of the complexity centred around change management.

鈥淥bviously going from a paper-based to a digital workflow, we had to do a lot of stakeholder engagement and management, and that was quite a complex task,鈥� he said.

While the project had required an extensive change management process, Kemp said the outcome was a 鈥渃ornerstone app that people can’t really go without鈥�.

鈥淚 just need to talk to anyone around the zoo to qualify that. Everyone that鈥檚 been at the organisation for longer than a year has stated how much time they save,鈥� he said.

The success of the project means the app is currently being rolled out to Taronga鈥檚 sister zoo in Dubbo, Western Plains Zoo.

Keeping zoo keepers in the field

One of the app鈥檚 central features is an alert issuing function that broadcasts an alert code to staff – both within the app itself, as well as in email form – when an incident occurs.

Kemp said this was particularly useful for staff, given the zoo is a huge physical site with various animal precincts spread across quite challenging terrain.

鈥淚f there’s an animal breach, someone can open up the web app, click a button and it issues an alert that gets emailed to all users notifying them that there鈥檚 activity going on,鈥� he said.

鈥淲hat we鈥檝e implemented with StaX is there’s a lot more uniformity around those broadcasts now, so that everything that goes out is a code stating what鈥檚 been done.鈥�

Other useful features include an open weather API that includes a UV index, which Kemp said is useful for Workplace Health and Safety as many staff work outdoors.

The app also links out to Facebook Workplace, which Taronga uses for social and informal comms.

Phase two

While Kemp described the app鈥檚 integration with Taronga鈥檚 systems as 鈥渞elatively superficial鈥� at the moment, there are plans for more complex integrations in the future.

But for the time being the society is focused on phase two of the app, which has already been tested with key stakeholder groups.

Phase two will include additional functionality that allows staff to perform on-site vehicle booking, which Kemp said was particularly important for Western Plains Zoo.

The society plans to introduce phase two shortly, though this will likely be delayed by the coronavirus pandemic as Taronga has been forced to temporarily close.

鈥淭he result has been overwhelmingly positive and we鈥檙e very much looking forward to releasing phase two. We鈥檙e very close to rolling it out,鈥� Kemp said.

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