Customer Spotlight: AHCWA

AHCWA (Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia) is the peak body for 23 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services located throughout metropolitan, regional, rural and remote Western Australia. The organisation acts as a conduit between these services and national bodies, government, and other funders, to ensure they have the support they need.

As the Senior Quality and Compliance Officer at AHCWA, Rebecca Williams is responsible for administering LogiqcQMS across the organisation and offering support to member services. Rebecca’s role also consists of trend analysis and reporting, risk management and adhering to accreditation standards. We recently spoke with Rebecca to learn more about how LogiqcQMS has helped AHCWA manage their day-to-day operations as the organisation has grown in scale and complexity over the past 10 years.

How does your organisation currently use LogiqcQMS? 

The registers we use form the core of our record-keeping systems across the organisation. The documents register in particular is the centrepiece of our document management process. LogiqcQMS is also a big part of how we manage meeting scheduling and it’s our core accreditation tool. Some of the registers are a little less involved (like licensing), but it all serves a purpose for keeping people accountable and helping with operational management. Though, the biggest influence it’s had in our organisation would be around document management processes and record keeping. That’s really where LogiqcQMS comes into its own.

How does LogiqcQMS support operational management within your organisation? Are there any features that you find particularly helpful?  

I think the main one that I appreciate daily is the fact that I don’t have to have ten million calendar reminders for all upcoming actions in the system. Once they’re set in the system, it means I don’t have to do the monitoring. So ultimately, what I love about it is the accountability. It’s hard to shy away from a task when it’s sitting there in red. If it’s on your list, it’s yours to action.

There have definitely been some changes since we moved to version 6, and I think that it’s become a lot more intuitive, so people are interacting with the platform more. My predecessor did a lot of work to change the culture before I joined two years ago, to encourage LogiqcQMS to be seen as a helping tool, and I’ve inherited the benefits of that.

LogiqcQMS helps with smoothing approvals and cementing workflow and responsibilities, which ties back into accountability. I love that it’s where we keep all our templates, and I can easily direct people to the right place to find them. Regarding audits, the linking feature is really helpful so I can link improvements to the audit and get into the trend analysis. My philosophy on auditing is that the real goal is not to find where one person has made a mistake but to really analyse our systems, their efficiency and effectiveness, and whether they’re set up in a way that people can use them well. Logiqc is a massive part of how we do that. This constant quality improvement process really does drive a better approach overall, because of the learnings we get out of each audit. And we’ve had some wildly good results in discovering new revenue streams and innovative solutions. So, people might think my role is quite boring in the sense that I’m just looking at data and stats, but I can see those trends emerge and being able to highlight that to management is a great motivator.

We’re also looking at starting a campaign where we offer people a prize for having no overdue items and gamifying it a tiny bit. I think that’s an even better way of making LogiqcQMS part of the culture without making it feel strict or draconian. It’s always been about gaining efficiencies, not disciplining people. We want it to be a positive part of our work culture and a tool that helps us do our job, rather than something we don’t enjoy. I think the dashboards and being able to customise with widgets helps as well. It feels very modern and suits the vibe we’re trying to create.

As the Senior Quality and Compliance Officer, what are your goals for your QMS? 

I have a few short and long-term goals. In the short term, I think the new asset register will really help enhance some of our other workflows so I’m in talks with management about that. But then also, using the model of standardisation and really detailed record-keeping to revamp the way we do things like version and document control. When I first joined, one of the first things I noticed is that we were doing about 90% of our document control outside of Logiqc. Since I had the training from Elizabeth and understood how the document and version control worked, more has been held in the system. We have documents in there from 2013 and over the last 8-9 years, there’s been such a shift in the way we name things and enter metadata, that having to update 700-800 documents was looking to be a big piece of work – until the Bulk Edit tool came in! It seems like a tangible goal now.

We have style guides for everything else in the organisation, so I want to build Logiqc style guides around what we enter and what data we capture for each register. We now have maturity in our system that we’re in a position to apply universal rules. It’s about looking at the little issues that come up from time to time that are frustrating for users and removing those barriers to get the platform functioning more effectively. Putting parameters in place around naming conventions and keywords will enhance our search function as well – having a good guess and finding something on global search will be so much more satisfying!

After reading another recent customer spotlight, I got chatting to the manager who was featured about how we both use LogiqcQMS. We’re now looking at starting a Logiqc user group in WA among our Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations to encourage knowledge sharing and best practices.

What have been the biggest gains for AHCWA in using a technology based QMS? 

Accountability is probably the big winner. Right at the beginning when we’re considering an item or adding a contract, we’re identifying who is responsible for the reporting and assigning accountability. It gives staff peace of mind that all their to-dos are in the one place, and it also allows for forward planning and allocation of resources. I always encourage staff in inductions to action items when they’re in blue, not when they get to yellow or red, and to use LogiqcQMS as a planning tool.

LogiqcQMS has also enhanced our reporting, which is the lifeblood of what we do because it ensures funding. At any minute, I can pull or download a register, filter results to look at specific data and I can see the interconnectedness between improvement items and audits. It’s also inspired me to apply a similar model to revolutionise the way we report at AHCWA more broadly.

How has LogiqcQMS supported AHCWA in managing scale and complexity? 

We have just recently had some potential future massive growth. The government has provided us with funding to set up a new social services peak body, which will effectively see our organisation double. It will be small to begin with and housed inside AHCWA, but as time goes on, it will become its own separate body with separate resources. The team understands how Logiqc works, and they anticipate they will take it across when they do eventually separate from us. For now, they are effectively operating in their own group within our LogiqcQMS. It has helped take the complexity out of the changeover, as relevant tasks can carry over and old work can easily be allocated to someone else.

From a management perspective, templates have been helpful to allow the team to easily rebrand applicable templates for that peak and therefore make smarter investments. It’s reduced duplication and meant that the team can focus on spending money in the best way possible, such as engaging with stakeholders across WA.  

In terms of growth inside AHCWA, we have grown to around 65-70 when we usually average about 50 people. The upside of that is that we’re able to make much more impact in our sector, and we have a new streamlined strategic plan to focus on doing what we do best instead of trying to be everything to everybody. That’s driven a lot of growth. The more we can do that, the more we can deliver, and this helps to meet the government’s goals around closing the gap. When management makes big decisions to change the structure, it’s easy to do so. If LogiqcQMS wasn’t set up the way it was, it would be much harder.   

Anything else you would like to add?  

I feel super supported by the Logiqc team which is always great. Internally, I feel like we’re having a renaissance of people appreciating what LogiqcQMS does. It’s the perfect blend right now to start working on some of my projects, which I’m excited about, especially getting the user group off the ground. We want to boost the way our ACCHS’ use the platform and introduce it into some of our social services once that peak body is up and running, from the point of view of accreditation. That’s invaluable when it comes to reputation and ability to secure government funding outside of philanthropic funding. The main goal of the user group is to ensure that people who currently use it, are using it really well, and to introduce it to people if they need assistance. I think it’s exciting, and I’m really looking forward to that!