Broome Regional Aboriginal Medical Service (BRAMS) was the first remote Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service in Western Australia and has been operating in the community for over 40 years. BRAMS provides a broad range of holistic and primary health care, social and emotional wellbeing services and NDIS support, delivering 40,000 occasions of service each year to the Aboriginal community in Broome.
As Chief Executive Officer of BRAMS, Cassie Atchison maintains a helicopter view, overseeing all operations including governance, risk management, quality management and compliance and leading a team of 65. We spoke with Cassie to find out more about how the organisation uses LogiqcQMS to its full potential.
In leading the revision of Logiqc, what were you wanting to achieve for the organisation?
I inherited LogiqcQMS when I joined BRAMS and quickly noticed it wasn’t being used to its full capacity or very much at all. I’ve used Logiqc in my previous three roles and so I had a really good understanding of what the system can do and deliver for an organisation. So, we actually wiped it and started from scratch. Now, two years down the track, we are using LogiqcQMS to its full capacity. It’s our go-to QMS system for document control, records management, employment contracts, funding and leasing agreements, and all registers for governance, management and reporting.
We recently had our first ISO quality accreditation in March, and it was the first time we have achieved that accreditation. We received great feedback from the assessor that he hadn’t seen a QMS like Logiqc being used to its full capacity and working so well. This was a proof-point of the benefits of using LogiqcQMS to its full potential – it’s critical for maintaining our QMS goals.
What approach did you take to get your management team on board for a successful revival of Logiqc?
When I first started at BRAMS, there wasn’t a clear structure around internal processes, and quality management didn’t really exist. The team’s main focus was on delivering primary healthcare, which often meant a rush come accreditation time to get everything together. This is why LogiqcQMS wasn’t being utilised prior to me joining. So, the approach I took with management and the rest of the staff was to make quality part of our everyday. This helped to shift the QMS from being seen as a ‘tick box exercise, to a mindset where everything we do is guided by our policies and processes – and LogiqcQMS is the tool that keeps this on track and top of mind.
I also established a Quality, Risk and Safety Committee, Corporate Governance Committee and Clinical Governance Committee. LogiqcQMS drives the agenda for these committee meetings, where we review and reflect on incidents and feedback related to these three areas of the organisation. The meeting function in LogiqcQMS has really helped to drive our quality process and hold people to account.
What is your vision of how you want Logiqc to support the governance structure at BRAMS?
LogiqcQMS supports our day-to-day operational governance, but I would love to see a governance function where our Board of Directors can access the information they are seeking in real-time, instead of having to wait for the Board meetings for updates. Quite often we will receive emails from directors asking what happened with a particular resolution, so it would be great to have a separate register for this and allow them to create their own Dashboards.
I promise that other organisations would benefit from this too, not just BRAMS! Some organisations use separate software for their Board governance, and we are currently using an Excel spreadsheet, so it would make sense to integrate this function. I think this presents an opportunity for Logiqc to further support organisations’ governance structures in future.
Anything else that you would like to add?
I’ve used Logiqc for a long time – it’s a great system and everyone in the team is really good to work with. I recommend Logiqc to all organisations, not just Aboriginal Medical Services. I think there’s a perception that Logiqc is just for primary health care and medical services but it’s not. Any type of organisation wanting to strengthen their quality, risk and compliance processes can benefit from using Logiqc.
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