Returning time to care with Ability WA

Who you’ll hear from

• David Edwards

  Chief Customer Officer, Ability WA

• Lauren Spada

  Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist & PBS Practitioner, Ability WA

• Karma Dorji

  Residential Care Worker, Ability WA

• Keoki Alexander-Chang

  CEO & Co-Founder, Minikai

• Ruby

  Customer Engagement Team Lead, Ability WA

1. 00:01 – 00:27

   David Edwards

   Chief Customer Officer, Ability WA

   I think a lot of the biggest challenges are around the policy and pricing environment that we face in the disability sector and our need to be responsive to sectoral changes. And that puts a lot of overhead impost on the organisation, puts a lot of stress on the staff and takes the staff away really from what they’re here to do, which is to serve customers and to give customers the best quality service that they possibly can.

2. 00:28 – 00:42

   Lauren Spada

   Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist & PBS Practitioner, Ability WA

   A big part of therapy services is all the documentation and report writing that we need to complete, and that does take a substantial amount of time when looking at hours that customers have. A lot of that can be spent on that documentation and report writing — taking away from that face-to-face.

3. 00:42 – 00:57

   Karma Dorji

   Residential Care Worker, Ability WA

   In therapy, the most challenging thing is getting to a house and not getting enough handover — meeting someone who’s not familiar with the house, so there’s not enough handover. Thereby I need to search for everything the client needs from scratch.

4. 00:57 – 01:18

   Keoki Alexander-Chang

   CEO & Co-Founder, Minikai

   If you can make AI person-centred, then really all it is doing is acting as a vehicle of context through time about that person’s history and their changes. And so almost regardless of what someone needs at any point in time in supporting someone, what it can provide to them is the right information at the right time.

5. 01:18 – 01:47

   Lauren Spada

   Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist & PBS Practitioner, Ability WA

   So the Minis are great, as all of the customer data is within that particular Mini. For example, each customer has their own Mini and then I can ask the Mini specific questions about that customer that is not relevant to anybody else. I can find out quickly — somebody’s date of birth, when they last had OT, who the last therapist to see them was, or what goals they were working on in that session. It’s a quick reference to pull information about a customer to save me having to dig through our other systems to find it.

6. 01:47 – 02:20

   Ruby

   Customer Engagement Team Lead, Ability WA

   The biggest impact the Minis have on our clients is the ability for us to now spend more face-to-face time with our customers. My team members all have a caseload of 150-plus clients. So when you’re able to take out a lot of the admin workload and the manual workload that goes into the day-to-day functions of their role, they can spend that extra hour with the client, they can spend that extra 10 minutes on the phone call. A lot of the clients that we have are parents who are in their older years. We have a lot of young parents as well who are new to NDIS. Being able to sit down and take that time to explain the system and explain us as a provider is an asset.

7. 02:20 – 02:40

   Lauren Spada

   Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist & PBS Practitioner, Ability WA

   Minikai has given me more time to spend with customers face-to-face. I’m utilising less of their funding on the progress reporting. Like, the work at my desk — I’m able to spend more time with them, less time doing emails, writing reports. It’s made my time more efficient because I’m able to gain that time and then utilise that with them face-to-face.

8. 02:41 – 03:00

   Lauren Spada

   Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist & PBS Practitioner, Ability WA

   I’m still using my clinical reasoning to make all recommendations and judgments for that customer. Minikai is structuring the thoughts that I have, the notes that I’ve taken, and then adapting that into bodies of text. It’s never giving my recommendations, it’s not doing my job for me — it’s just streamlining the admin load that I have when making decisions about what’s the best thing for a customer.

9. 03:00 – 03:25

   Karma Dorji

   Residential Care Worker, Ability WA

   It takes, let’s say, 30 minutes or 15 minutes — but with the Minis we can do it within five. Less — like, even in a minute. It saves the admin work, and then we’ll have more time of doing face-to-face with the customers, assisting or helping or supporting to achieve their goals.

10. 03:25 – 03:41

    David Edwards

    Chief Customer Officer, Ability WA

    The real focus was about delivering on quality customer outcomes, alleviating that efficiency burden that people feel as part of their role, and getting our staff back to what they really desire to do, which is supporting customers and their outcomes.