The HomeMade Solution Bringing SAP BTP To Aged Care Services

Assumptions that aged care service solutions need to be low-tech to meet the needs of a so-called technologically challenged older population are being thrown out the window.

Australian-based digital disruptor HomeMade partnered with Bourne Digital to put SAP-built technology at the forefront of a new aged care model that it says is saving money and time for a growing list of clients.

Working alongside Bourne Digital, which was recently acquired by Accenture, HomeMade has utilised SAP’s Business Technology Platform to collaboratively build an aged care service model tailored to each client’s specific needs, according to Laura Westhorpe, the General Manager of HomeMade.

“People now are more comfortable with technology and there's new ways to service needs and find greater efficiency and ultimately create more value for customers to stay at home,” Laura told SAP’s Better Together: Customer Conversations podcast.

“With HomeMade, customers are able to work with us to build a plan. That plan is then shared with them through the technology platform. They're able to see what funding is available to them every day. They can see what's coming in and what's coming out of their account.”

Clients can select their own service providers and support workers based on their needs and preferences. “So we've designed solutions which mean that customers can retain that agency and make their own decisions about their care and services,” Laura said.

Since implementing SAP BTP, HomeMade has grown from 400 customers to 2500. “We've saved our customers over $14 million worth of funding that they've been able to redirect into their care and services, rather than paying us fees,” Laura said.

“Our customers have got complete transparency over what their support plans are, what services they can access, and they can communicate with our team easily.

Bourne Digital CEO Selim Ahmed told the podcast he was convinced from the outset that SAP BTP was the right fit for HomeMade. “It had the enterprise-grade products such as security, the portal service, the integration service, that could scale with the business infinitely,” he said.

“A good example is that we leverage services such as the AI business services to read documents such as invoices. And we're feeling really confident that those AI business services will continue to play a part in the future evolution of HomeMade as they move more and more towards automation and self-service.”

Bourne Digital implemented an SAP BTP Cloud Foundry solution on AWS, which is hosted in Sydney. “So it's local, but it's a high-performance cloud architecture that can scale across the HomeMade network, which is really important,” Selim said.

“And then all the components which we used, we used an open source cloud foundry runtime application in React for the portal.

“That means this application not only looks great for HomeMade and is defined for the end users to be simple and intuitive to use, but also it can be supported pretty much by any developer.

“We've made it really easy for this solution to integrate not just to HomeMade’s environments, such as their ERP, but also to external parties using the SAP Integration Suite, which is really important. So, it's really got the ability to leverage APIs, to talk to external services, to manage the data.

“We feel we've created what's called a composable architecture with SAP BTP that can continue to evolve and leverage new services – for example, more AI, more capabilities to simplify and automate processes, which is going to be critical for scaling the business.”

The HomeMade team has grown from six to more than 100 since collaborating with Bourne Digital to customise and implement the SAP BTP platform.

“We've got a highly engaged workforce,” Laura said. “We're attracting new people to the sector because they can see that we're doing something differently, that we are really innovating, and that's really exciting for the sector as well, because unfortunately, aged care is not generally viewed as a sexy career path.

“And so, we're sort of creating a space where people want to be, and where they can see that they can make a difference by doing something differently.”

With reforms expected in the aged care sector in Australia, Laura said HomeMade was just getting started with its push to disrupt aged care services.

“We're really excited for the next iteration of our tech and really starting to look at how we can use the technology for the clinical risk management and preventative intervention for customers as they get into the more complex care needs,” she said.

“Because we've got all this wonderful data now coming in from all different sources, we're able to identify where deterioration is happening, where people might be at risk. So, that's really exciting.

“And we're just looking forward to taking the solution to more people in the community and growing the business by sharing our service.”