Whiddon’s Data Transformation Journey
Whiddon is an award-winning aged care provider that has been offering various care, support, and well-being services to older Australians for over 70 years. With a particular focus on creative therapies, Whiddon offers a unique set of programs that support the elderly to remain connected and enjoy the things that matter to them. However, with the evolution of their data journey, Whiddon was facing significant challenges in managing their data effectively. To overcome these obstacles, Whiddon joined forces with Qtx, a trusted partner renowned for delivering robust and efficient data solutions for a large number of Tier 1 Aged Care organisations in Australia. This strategic partnership empowered Whiddon to quickly address their challenges and effectively manage their data with a heightened level of efficiency.
The Challenge
The last few years presented a huge amount of change in the Aged Care industry, with new Government funding models, additional KPIs, end-user surveys and rating systems – all of which required prompt reporting based on real-time data. While adapting to the new rules and regulations, Whiddon realised that there were several obstacles in managing their data effectively. With three levels of data flowing through their systems, Whiddon needed to incorporate a data integration function, including the utilisation of a data swimlane. Additionally, there was no data warehouse at the beginning, and the process was based on spreadsheets and direct reading from systems which made it manual and time-consuming.
Whiddon needed visibility of their data and reliable reporting that enabled proactive decision-making. The main criteria were based on time to value, return on investments and identifying the quick wins along the process. As they approached the market, however, they quickly realised that most vendors lacked the technical vision beyond the fundamental aspects of data warehousing and data flows.
The Solution
What differentiated Qualiticks was a holistic future vision and detailed plan of how to achieve an enterprise-level data system, including establishing master data management and integration capabilities. The proposed approach covered areas like data security, access control, data rules and governance combined with the efficiency of the cloud storage.
To ensure excellent value for money, Qtx prioritised leveraging the native capabilities of the Microsoft platform, minimising unnecessary complexity and emphasising ease of future maintenance. By adopting this approach, Qualiticks recommended a toolset that fulfilled 90% of Whiddon's requirements, requiring only minimal customisation and fine-tuning to achieve the desired business outcomes. Not only this approach maximised efficiency but also ensured cost effectiveness for Whiddon's data management needs.
The Result
“Visibility creates accountability”
James Turnbull
General Manager ICT
The collaboration between Whiddon and Qtx led to the formation of a cohesive blended team, where Whiddon's small internal squad and Qtx’s experts worked together seamlessly. This partnership model swiftly enhanced Whiddon's internal capabilities, enabling them to release new data dashboards regularly—an accomplishment that would have been unattainable previously. The team achieved this objective without incurring substantial overheads, resulting in significant cost savings for Whiddon by eliminating the need for a large internal data team.
As a result of their broad industry experience, Qtx was also able to help Whiddon navigate the change process, as the entire Aged Care sector was going through significant transformation affecting their core business.
The Future
Leveraging the existing partnership with Qualiticks, Whiddon has set its sights on shifting its focus towards constructing a Microsoft Enterprise Service Bus and become proactive in identifying problems before the business even knows. The idea is to have almost a "traffic lights" system that is proactive, with an industrial-strength integration system that allows subscribe-to-data functionality, and a unified source of truth. Automatic data flows through systems will be made possible, and curated data sets for doing self-data analytics will be made available. Whiddon aims to solve data privacy issues along the way by enabling data democracy without breaking rules or permissions.
“Whiddon's partnership with Qualiticks has been a huge success. The Qualiticks team is passionate and knowledgeable, keeping up to date with the latest trends and providing insights on how to build modern solutions. They don’t tick boxes, they squeeze the value for their clients, and we get lots of insights on how to build modern solutions and stay on track with all changes and current best practices. They have been a real guide through our journey, and partner who we can trust. Qualiticks deliver on time and communicate clearly, with no surprises to the business.”
James Turnbull
General Manager ICT