Just in time for the end of Financial Year, we’ve released a raft of changes to make Coverage even easier to use.
And don’t forget we’re offering free access to Coverage for 2 months to all aged care providers, check out our blog for more information. Be quick because the offer ends 30th of June 2020.
Protecting your data
To make sure you don’t lose any data, we’ll warn you if you try to leave a page without saving
Better labels
We’ve put a little reminder that Area for Improvement is included in your PCI activities.
We also renamed RACS ID and NAPS ID to Service ID
Improved Manage Service area
We’ve made it easier to remove Standards that don’t apply to your Service, especially helpful to Home Care service providers
We’ve changed “Residential Place” and “Planning Region” fields from mandatory to optional.
Minor bugs squashed
Nobody’s perfect. So we have also sorted out a couple of bugs, thanks to our diligent users and testers
If you come across any issues or have an idea for a new feature please email us at support@umbrella.solutions
Updates, we’ve got you covered
There’s a lot going on at the moment, so here’s one thing you don’t need to worry about. Coverage updates!
Just sit back and relax, the updates will be applied automatically, you don’t need to lift a finger.
In April 2020, our Chief Product Officer, Vinnie D’Alessandro was invited to write a blog post for innovAGING about the “Remote Governance during the age of COVID-19”.
The result of his effort was that they thought he had done such a good job that they invited him back this month to be part their incredibly popular innovAGEING Insights Webinar Series: Innovating Through COVID-19. The topic of the Webinar was “Modern Governance: Using Technology to take control of the Aged Care Quality Standards”. It was hosted by Merlin Kong, Head of innovAGEING, one of our customers, Joseph McCarthy, CEO of NovaCare and of course, Vinnie.
NovaCare is an award-winning aged care provider, based in Newcastle. They are all about supporting people’s choices to lead their own life the way they want, living in their own home, making their own decisions and doing the things they love.
NovaCare’s approach to governance and the Aged Care Quality Standards is about commitment, ownership and visibility and Joseph is bringing a modern approach to this facet of the organisation.
The webinar is a great way to see how Umbrella Solutions loves to work with our customers and to collaborate on improving the product for all. A great example of this is how NovaCare has allowed us to understand how providers view the interrelation of the Standards and this has given us a lot of ideas for future features for the product.
I hope you have the time to watch the webinar as there are some great insights from Joseph as to their experiences with the Standards and how Umbrella Coverage has assisted the NovaCare team, including the quality manager all the way to the Board, to get visibility of where they are at regarding their compliance.
Once again, thank you to Merlin for facilitating this webinar, Joseph for his fantastic insights and Vinnie for the candid and detailed responses regarding the use of technology to manage the Aged Care Quality Standards.
We’ve squeezed a second release into May just in time for the lifting of the isolation restrictions. Here’s the low down on the new features and fixes for Coverage.
And don’t forget we’re offering free access to Coverage for 2 months to all aged care providers, check out our blog for more information. Be quick because the offer ends 30th of June 2020.
Improved Archive features
We’ve included a filter for archive responses so you don’t have to see them in your list
You can now unarchive responses, that’s why pencils have erasers
Date of last change for each Standard
Want to know when your team last made an update each Standard? Now you can
Just head to the Overview page for each Services to see what’s been happening
Redesigned More button
The More button needed a little “more” styling, so while we were adding the Unarchive function we cleaned it up
Support for RACS ID and NAPS ID
We used to just call it a RACS ID, but that wasn’t fair to the Home Care Services
We’re all about inclusion here at Umbrella Solutions, so it’s now called Service ID and supports both RACS ID and NAPS ID
Improved attachment handling
Our diligent developers picked up a potential issue when users upload attachments, they worked their magic and now it’s even more reliable
Minor bugs squashed
Nobody’s perfect. So we have also sorted out a couple of bugs, thanks to our diligent users and testers
If you come across any issues or have an idea for a new feature please email us at support@umbrella.solutions
Updates, we’ve got you covered
There’s a lot going on at the moment, so here’s one thing you don’t need to worry about. Coverage updates!
Just sit back and relax, the updates will be applied automatically, you don’t need to lift a finger.
Listen up, I don’t want to blow our own horn here, but this could be our best release so far. Some massive new features to help you navigate the Standards and easily onboard new users. Let’s check out what’s in store for our May release.
And don’t forget we’re offering free access to Coverage for 2 months to all aged care providers, check out our blog for more information. Be quick because the offer ends 30th of June 2020.
Online Tutorial
We know that even intuitive systems like Coverage can be a little daunting at first so we’ve designed a super quick tutorial that takes you through all the features
It’s great for onboarding new users (way better than boring training sessions) and you can run it anytime you like from the Help menu
Direct links to responses
Wouldn’t it be great if you could jump directly to a response like an Area for Improvement or Evidence without having to hunt for it? Well now you can!
Our secure links are available from the PCI Dashboards, email notifications and you can even Share a link (it copies it to your clipboard)
Or you can just grab the link from the address bar in your favourite browser
Redesigned Communications tab
We’ve included the item title so you know exactly what you’re working on
Now you can jump straight to the item using the view button
And we have also enabled scrolling so you see more detail
Minor Bugs Squashed
Nobody’s perfect. So we have also sorted out a couple of bugs, thanks to our diligent users and testers
If you come across any issues or have an idea for a new feature please email us at support@umbrella.solutions
Updates, we’ve got you covered
There’s alot going on at the moment, so here’s one thing you don’t need to worry about. Coverage u
pdates.
Just sit back and relax, the updates will be applied automatically, you don’t need to lift a finger.
Vinnie D’Alessandro, Umbrella Solutions Chief Product Officer, has written an article for innovAGEING – Australia’s national age services innovation network.
Led by Merlin Kong, innovAGEING is the national innovation network for the age services industry. It aims to bring together the brightest minds and ideas to help transform the aged care industry.
At Umbrella Solutions, we’ve designed Coverage to be so simple to purchase and use that we reckon you could have a live Plan for Continuous dashboard up and running in with only a few minutes of effort!
Subscribe to Coverage: Effort – 2 minutes
We’ve made it super simple to get started with Coverage and the first month is free.
Jump on our website https://umbrella.solutions/coverage grab the monthly subscription product, enter your details and credit card and you’re off. In a few seconds you’ll receive an email about your order.
Don’t worry we won’t charge your credit card until next month, and you have the freedom to cancel any time via our website. We won’t make you write a letter or talk to a high pressure call centre sales person to cancel your subscription. Just go to https://Umbrella.Solutions/my-account find your order and cancel it.
Relax while we get your environment ready: Effort – 0 minutes
Grab a cuppa while our team gets to work building your secure environment in the cloud.
It’s doesn’t take us to long, usually a couple of business hours. But at really busy times it may take longer, so if we’re flat out we’ll give you a heads up.
We’re working on automating this process so soon it will be completed in minutes, any time of the day!
Configuration information via email: Effort – 1 minutes
We’ll send you a welcome email once everything is ready, then we’ll need one last thing: the email address of the person who will be administering Coverage. Don’t worry, they don’t have to be technical – Coverage is super simple to manage.
You’ll also receive a completed order email with your invoice, which will be $0 for the first month.
Login and setup your service: Effort – 3 minutes
Shortly you’ll receive an email, click on the Complete Registration button.
You’ll be taken to our Coverage service, were you enter your details and pick a password.
Now you’re logged into Coverage!
Next you have to setup your first Residential our Home Care Service in the ‘Manage’ section.
Enter the details and select the Standards that apply to this service. If you’re not sure we’ve got some useful information in ‘Help’ section in the top menu
Now you’re ready to get going on to the Aged Care Quality Standards!
Create your first responses to the Aged Care Quality Standards: Effort – 4 minutes
Let’s enter our first responses. We’re not entering sample data here, this is real Evidence and Area for Improvement items that enhance your compliance with the Quality Standards!
Select your ‘Service’ at the top menu
Select number 8 for Standards 8 – Organisational Governance on the left menu
Select ‘Requirements 3c’ and then click the ‘+ Add new item button’ and select the ‘Area for Improvement’ item
Enter the details for the implementation of Coverage and then click save.
You’ve first completed Plan for Continuous Improvement action!
Now let’s create a piece of Evidence for Coverage to describe the system and value to the business. Click the ‘+ Add new item button’ and select the ‘Evidence’ item.
Enter the details and click save.
Finally, let’s create an active action for rolling out Coverage to your other team members. Click the ‘+ Add new item button’ and select ‘Area for Improvement’.
Looking good, you’ve already completed two responses to Standard 8!
Check out the PCI dashboard: Effort – 1 minute
Click on ‘PCI’ on the left menu to see your Plan for Continuous improvement.
There’s your live PCI action. But what about the completed one? Just Click the ‘Include Completed’ filter and it will appear.
Spread the word! Effort – 1 minute
Let’s get started on the roll out and add more people to Coverage. Go to ‘Manage’ and select the ‘User’ tabs and press the ‘Add User’ button.
Add their email, select a role and make sure you pick at least one Service
10 minutes and you’ve got your Aged Care Quality Standards moving
There you have it, your first use of Coverage with real world responses. And it’s all done with just 10 minutes of effort.
So what’s holding you back? Take control of the Quality Standards with Umbrella Coverage today.
Click here to get Coverage up and running or get in touch with us at hello@umbrella.solutions for more information.
Although we’ve already updated Coverage this month, there’s no rules saying we can’t release more in February. Maybe we’re just motivated by the leap year giving us an extra day.
Thanks to the feedback from our amazing customers, here’s what is being released to Coverage this week.
Updated Design
New logos but the same familiar colors
New Categories
Due to popular demand we’ve added Feedback and Training categories to our Area for Improvement and Evidence responses
We’ve also ordered alphabetically
Response Copy fixes
We found a couple of bugs in our new favourite feature but we got them sorted
Reports
The Standards tabs are now in numerical order, rather than the order in which you created them
Provider Overview Dashboard
Non-compliance and Sanctions data is now reflective of the Government published data
Hopefully you won’t see anything there!
Minor Bugs Squashed
Nobody’s perfect, so we are fixing up a couple of bugs thanks to our diligent users and testers
Updates, we’ve got you covered
Do you know what you have to do to get updates for Coverage? Zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing!
Just sit back and relax, the updates will be applied automatically, you don’t need to lift a finger.
When it comes to the self-assessment process for the new Aged Care Quality Standards, it’s a relatively consistent process to other compliance exercises.
understand requirements
formulate responses
self-rate each requirement
provide evidence and information to support the rating
Sure, there’s a lot of effort to collate the evidence and information but most organisations have it … somewhere. So, whether you’re using spreadsheets or Coverage to manage your self-assessment and audit responses, it’s just a matter of time and effort to get your assessment completed. But, and we might be a little biased here, Coverage does make it much easier 😊
So why is the Plan for Continuous Improvement causing headaches for providers?
At Umbrella Solutions, we spent a lot of time researching the new Standards reporting expectations and we understand why it’s difficult and also how to make it easier to manage.
As the name suggests, Plan for Continuous improvement (PCI) is meant to highlight the efforts and actions of providers to enhance the quality of their services. On the surface it seems quite aligned to the evidence required by the Standards.
However there’s a subtle difference; evidence is static, continuous improvements are alive.
If you have a resident service policy, you’re well on the way to meeting the Requirements of Standard 1. Grab the document. Attach it as evidence. Done.
But how do you show you’re improving your service offering? And better still; how do you track it?
You need some key pieces of information to track PCI activities
What you’re improving
Who’s responsible for it
When is it due
What’s the outcome
Some initiatives are large enough to be run as a project, so you can probably track that in a project management tool.
But what about the smaller operational tasks that your staff are working on like training, policy and procedure updates, preventative maintenance and process improvements? There may be 20, 30 or even hundreds of improvements aged care providers are making over a year.
The Government and assessors want to see all the things you’re working on now and since the last assessment. You need one place to see it together and to bring it to life.
We’ve got you covered
Coverage provides a unified location for all your responses to the Standards as well as Plans for Continuous improvement. With our prebuilt, live dashboard and reporting we give you visibility over your PCI activities
The Government has a separate PCI reporting template for providers to fill in. However, we believe you’re better off to keep all your responses and actions for the Standards in one place so you cut down on data entry.
In Coverage, PCI activities are recorded as Area for Improvement records against each Standard and Requirement. We also have a simple copy feature that allows you to duplicate an Area for Improvement to multiple Standards and Requirements in just a few clicks. You can even copy them across multiple residential or home care services!
To give you a full view of your activities, we have a live PCI dashboard and mini dashboards on the Overview pages.
We also have built in email notifications so staff receive an email when an Area for Improvement is assigned to them. They’ll also receive a reminder 2 days before the response is due and on the day that it’s due.
Oh, and let’s not forget you can export a PCI report anytime you want. And PCI activities are even included in the Self-Assessment and Audit reports.
We can get you up and running in Coverage with no technology support required.
So take control and bring your Plan for Continuous Improvement to life with Coverage.
