How digitisation helps the aged care sector adapt to growing demand

Across the globe, the world’s population is getting older. People are living longer and having fewer children, causing a disproportionate growth in demand for services like in-home care, short-term care, aged hospice and institutional aged care. 

The numbers tell the story well. Back in 2013, just 14% of the Australian population were aged 65 and over. By 2053, this figure is expected to jump to 21%. While older people these days generally consider themselves to be in good health — and many can live independently well into their senior years — there is no doubt that an exponentially ageing population will have a ripple effect across the aged care sector. Indeed, the main users of aged care services tend to be people aged over 85, and their numbers are expected to increase at least four-fold by 2047.

No wonder the Australian Government is so focused on aged care reform. And, as part of this reform, digital transformation is on the agenda — with a goal of making the sector’s IT networks more consolidated, sustainable, automated and modern. 

This transformation couldn’t come at a better time, enabling the sector to respond more rapidly to the pressures being placed upon it. The Australian Department of Health and Aged Care is delivering a new Government Provider Management System (GPMS) built on the Salesforce platform, and integrated with Docusign, to enable greater connectivity and data sharing between care providers and government. The Department has described this as “a big foundational piece of work” for the digital transformation of Aged Care services.

A shifting aged care system

As the population ages, the shape of the aged care system is changing. These days, many older Australians express the desire to remain in their own homes for as long as possible. Research has shown that older people who ‘age in place’ have a better quality of life and are happier than those in aged care homes. 

Not only that, but the ‘age in place’ model also reduces the burden on institutional aged care services, where places are becoming increasingly scarce. Yet the rapid growth of at-home care will increase the burden on community services and aged care providers who offer home care. 

To help cope with the growing demand — and to support the rapid on-boarding of service providers at scale — the time is ripe for outdated, manual processes to be replaced with automated, digital systems. Why? Because anything still done on paper takes up unnecessary admin time and budget, which could be better spent on delivering high quality aged care services.

Making the switch to digital agreements

By replacing paper-based processes with digital agreements, both government agencies and aged care providers can work smarter and faster — reducing errors, accelerating approval processes, and ultimately delivering care to senior citizens sooner. For example, in Australia, Arcare has automated processes across admissions, administration and HR by integrating Docusign into their Salesforce CRM. Now, over 80% of their processes are digitised and they are saving on average 100,000 sheets of paper every year.

For senior citizens wanting to sign up for an aged care service, digital processes can help make an often stressful time as easy as possible. For example, intuitive and easy-to-use web forms guide them through the onboarding process — one simple screen at a time. Using eSignature and Docusign Payments, they can complete their applications in one easy sitting, all from the comfort of their own homes. 

And behind the scenes, aged care providers can leverage Docusign’s Open APIs and over 400 pre-built connectors to integrate into the line-of-business tools they use every day, so there’s minimal need for retraining or upskilling of staff.

If you work in aged care and are keen to learn more about the benefits of digitising your paper-based processes with Docusign, watch our on-demand webinar or contact our sales team.