Adventist Retirement Plus future-proofs operations with SAP

Adventist Retirement Plus is an aged care provider operating in South Queensland, Australia. As a ministry of the Adventist Church it offers ‘Christ-centred care’, based on Christian principles for people of any faith. Operating across four sites, Adventist provides three different levels of client care – retirement living, supported living (home care) and residential aged care services.

Challenge

In striving to always deliver the best possible care, Adventist realised it faced a number of key business issues. These stemmed primarily from the number of disparate systems in use throughout the business. Manual reporting processes, labour intensive reconciliation practices and poor information flow between front and back office functions was hindering workforce productivity and limiting financial visibility into the business. Ultimately, it was also reducing the amount of direct care its staff could offer residents.

The key issue with non-integrated systems was the time spent doing manual reconciliations and, in order to free up time for more hands-on interaction with residents, staff needed to do more things on the move rather than having to take information back to their desk to update a system.

In a sector impacted by regulatory changes, reduced funding and the arrival of ‘for profit’ providers, Adventist Retirement Plus had a stark choice – ‘evolve or die’.

Solution

To resolve its business issues, Adventist Retirement Plus opted to embark on a digital transformation project with DXC Technology aimed at lifting competitive performance by reducing costs and improving operational efficiencies. The project’s ultimate aim was to increase ‘hands-on’ interaction time with customers – a metric vital to its mission of enriching the lives of residents and their families.

Adventist Retirement Plus selected DXC Oxygen, because it promised to deliver an industry-leading solution that integrated its key front and back office activities. DXC implemented SAP Business ByDesign cloud-based ERP system together with Health Metrics eCase – an aged care specific solution that integrates with ByDesign and manages the entire patient experience with CRM, waitlist and exit/transfer processing capabilities.

Results

The integration allows Adventist Retirement Plus to better manage resident accounts because any changes made in eCase flow directly through to SAP. The administrative staff can review the financial information in the account instantaneously – rather than having to wait weeks for it to be manually updated.

The security and accessibility offered by having an ERP deployed in the cloud was another critical factor. The cloud provisioning was done in such a way to ensure Adventist Retirement Plus met all their obligations around privacy legislation. It is also facilitating more workforce flexibility. People can work off-site at one of the organisation’s other locations or from home quite easily thanks to the cloud deployment.

Now that an integrated solution is in place, information is much more accessible. Information can be sent to people at other locations without having to set up manual procedures and reporting happens without unnecessary manipulation of data. The fact that documents can be stored in SAP allows the finance team to attach valuable background information to invoices and has enabled paperless processing.

The solution has revolutionised Adventist Retirement Plus’ accounts payable processes. Invoices are received paperlessly by email and are processed the same way. Attachments to emails are stored in the system and available to anybody who needs to see them. No blockages occur due to the fact someone has misfiled a paper document.

Adventist Retirement Plus now has improved management oversight with full visibility into all locations, thanks to the solution’s analytics dashboard that allows transactional analysis to be undertaken in real-time. Management can delegate day-to-day jobs to key users and focus more on strategy. The solution has enhanced business processing with clear accountability between departments. It has provided users with one version of the truth allowing staff to better support customers.

Click here to read the full case study.

Learn more about DXC Oxygen’s SAP Business ByDesign packaged solution for the aged care industry.