Uniting AgeWell Residential Care: 74% operational cost saving with replacement of paper-based Visitor Management

 

LoopSafe’s entry management system saved staff an average of more than an hour of time every day and cut stationary costs by $10,374 in the first 12 months (compared to manual screening). It also meant the customer could respond quickly to changing compliance requirements during the pandemic.

• Direct operational cost saving of 74%
• Ongoing savings of 86% every year
• Saves key staff 1.02 hours per day

(Compared to operating a paper-based entry-management system.)

 

The client

Uniting AgeWell Residential Care has been caring for people for six decades. It provides residential and community services in Victoria and Tasmania, operating 20 aged care and community facilities.

 

The Challenge

The outbreak of COVID-19 meant entry-screening processes had to be implemented at all of its Victorian residential aged care sites to ensure the safety of residents, staff, contractors, and visitors. The Uniting AgeWell Residential Care team began searching for a solution that met two key criteria. First, it had to reduce the administrative load on staff members, who were spending hours manually checking temperatures and managing entry criteria using an onerous paper-based system. Second, it had to reduce the costs associated with these screening procedures.

Ian Blair – Director of Operations, Uniting AgeWell

What I really like is that when case numbers were high and state government directions were changing daily, we had the capacity to adapt to those changes. When we were printing, we had to throw out the existing forms and print new ones, which was horrendously expensive and always had a lag time. With LoopSafe, I could send them through in an email, and it could be implemented in about a minute.

 

The requirements

The system needed to be affordable, especially given the sector suffered a significant financial hit during the pandemic. It also needed to be straightforward enough to be implemented by the in-house IT team.

Uniting AgeWell Residential Care needed a one-stop solution that could:

• • Accurately measure temperature and alert staff if a high number is detected
  • Guide people through customised screening questions
  • Automatically check entry requirements, such as vaccination status
  • Streamline entry for different types of visits, such as visitors, contractors, and staff
  • Quickly apply entry setting changes to ensure compliance with the latest policy in real time
  • Streamline audits with exportable reports to make contact tracing easier
  • Continue to achieve business health and safety goals after the pandemic

 

The solution

LoopSafe is an Australian-owned technology company that helps organisations deliver great care to their communities with an automated entry management solution that doesn’t cost the earth.

LoopKiosk is an all-in-one hardware and software product that automates sign-in processes to protect the health and wellbeing of every person who enters a building. First, it uses proprietary Face ID technology to enable fast, accurate, and secure authentication of every person and a TGA-approved built-in temperature sensor to measure body temperature (ARTG ID: 376450) accurately. 

It guides users through a series of customisable screening questions before conducting an automated document validation check. This ensures items such as vaccination status, police check, and contractor insurance are valid and up-to-date. Access is automatically enabled only if all entry criteria are met. If a user fails any check, an alert can be sent to designated staff members for immediate follow up. 

This system is designed to improve efficiency while making it easier for organisations to protect the health and safety of vulnerable people in their care. It significantly reduces administrative costs while enabling organisations to track visitation effortlessly, generate reports, and trace contacts. This means staff no longer have to sift through mountains of paperwork collected over the days and weeks around an outbreak to comply with contact tracing and government reporting requirements.

Justin Mortera – Procurement Officer, Uniting AgeWell

Most of the visitors like to try out the devices. They look for them instead of the paper forms – it’s a lot quicker to use. The paper-based system would take a long time because they’d need someone to help them fill it out and there was usually a queue. This way, in five minutes, they’re off to see the resident.

 

The implementation

LoopKiosk is an easily configurable system. All customers get their own web console, where they can see real-time attendance information, which is easy to use and requires no technical expertise.

Uniting AgeWell Residential Care Procurement Officer, Justin Mortera, managed the installation in-house. The system is connected to Wi-Fi and runs smoothly, with very few support requests logged.

 

The result

Uniting AgeWell conducted a formal evaluation after the first year revealed some key findings:

• • The LoopSafe system resulted in a total direct cost saving of 74% compared to cost of paper printing for manual screening during a single-site trial, with ongoing savings of 86% per year.

• • Manual screening processes cost staff an average of one hour and five minutes per day, while LoopSafe screening takes just over two minutes per day. This saves staff an average of 1.02 hours per day, which adds up to almost a full week of productivity every month.

• • Prior to installing LoopKiosk, designated staff spent 14% of each work day on manual screening, but can now use that time to complete higher impact tasks on site.

“This is one of the more successful projects we’ve rolled out,” says Ian Blair, Director of Operations at Uniting AgeWell. “From my perspective, we’re a lot more agile as an organisation and we’ve got it down to a pretty fine art when it comes to managing the system and making it work for us.”  

LoopKiosk has now been rolled out at 12 Uniting AgeWell Residential Care facilities in Victoria. In addition to improving efficiency, it made it easier for staff to ensure compliance with rapidly changing government requirements. It also made contract tracing simple and easy, securely stored all data in Australia, and reduced the environmental impact and costs incurred by printing.

“The installation itself was easy because LoopSafe provided the documentation about how to connect the devices to the network and the team was really responsive when it came to customer support,” he says. “The main challenge we had was helping staff align their faces to the screen, but I’d say it only took a month or two for them to adjust and get comfortable with it.”

“We did a training session with Justin at the start,” says Zoe Milne, Co-Founder and Director at LoopSafe. “Commitment to customers is one of our values. We’ve designed everything so it’s easy to understand, easy to use, and easy for customers to customise so they can make changes on the fly.”

 

Three Key Facts About LoopSafe

1. Patented – LoopSafe’s technology is Australian-born and globally patented.
2. Private and secure – Data is stored right here in Australia to ensure privacy and security.
3. World-first tech solution – The system has been built in consultation with aged care providers, creating a world-first tech solution that automates manual processes so staff can focus on higher impact tasks.