Moran pioneers aged care business intelligence

The system, which has been in place for 12 months, is used primarily to assess the business performance of each of the Group’s 39 residential aged care facilities across Australia, and to sift through resident subsidy statement information provided by the federal Department of Health and Ageing.

The Group’s general manager for finance, Chris Mamarelis, told iTNews that the aged care revenue model in Australia is extremely complex due to government subsidies and regulatory compliance.

Resident profiling divides residents into those with ‘high-care’ and ‘low-care’ needs, and enables aged care providers to apportion resources accordingly as well as project the revenue streams of a single resident or group of residents.

Resident revenue subsidy statements are sent to Moran by the Department each month. However, there are typically lags or adjustments in the information provided, making it hard to sift through, according to Mamarelis.

The statements feed into Moran’s billing and revenue system, from where the information is extracted and reported using the financial analytics package, IBM Cognos TM1 (formerly Applix).

Each TM1 data cube pulls in information from multiple sources, including rostering, payroll, general ledger and billing systems, Mamarelis said.

The reports are prepared and outputted using TM1 Web.

“We previously consolidated the information manually into Excel spreadsheets,” said Mamarelis.

“It was a very inefficient system.”

Moran conducted a proof-of-concept on the then-Applix TM1 solution through partner, Cubewise. Cognos – at the time a competitor – was also among the solutions evaluated.

The results of using TM1 included shaving 15 days off the month-end turnaround of management reporting and an ‘appreciation’ among staff for using BI software in addition to the general ledger system.

“Our analysts and accountants are getting better analysis out of the information,” said Mamarelis.

“They’re getting stuck into it on their own and coming with their own what-if scenarios. Excel had too many limitations [in that respect].”

Moran has also rolled out the system to operational management for offsite community care. Managers look at rostering, active bookings, and performance ‘instantly’ and ‘live straight out of the database’.

“Being able to roll out information online has been a huge plus for us,” said Mamarelis.

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