In 2022, following a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, an independent review of the ACQSC was commissioned. It looked at how the ACQSC was run, including its leadership and governance, workforce, and enabling infrastructure like its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability and capacity. It also checked for any overlap in services.
Based on this brief, the review provided recommendations to help the ACSQSC modernise its regulatory approach and improve in areas like accreditation, education, protection, safety community engagement and ICT and data systems.
xAmplify was approached to be part of the review team with a specific focus on:
- How ICT was organised and governed, along with the overall digital strategy.
- Planning and managing ICT projects, including system development and architecture.
- Enhancing digital capabilities, improving cybersecurity, and strengthening ICT infrastructure.
It was important that our contribution to the report was made in partnership with the ACQSC and its teams, and reviewed against best-practice – in this case, how similar Australian Government regulatory agencies develop, govern and enhance their ICT.
A bottom-up, top-down collaborative approach
From day one, we partnered with the ACQSC’s executive, stakeholders from the Department of Health and Aged Care, and aged care providers. We took a ‘bottom-up and top-down’ approach to understand how advanced each of the ACQSC’sICT functions was.
We needed to identify key capability gaps, find ways to streamline current operations, and pinpoint the ACQSC’s future digital and ICT needs. We did this in four key phases – each of them involving teams from the ACQSC, to give them a sense of ownership when it came time to implement the changes.
Phase 1 – Build Understanding
We fine-tuned and agreed on detailed descriptions for each part of the ICT elements of the review. Then, we decided on the best way to gather information for each area, which specific data to collect, who to involve, and how we’d engage with them.
Phase 2 – Discovery
We gathered previous reports on the ACQSC’sICT capabilities, and connected with key stakeholders and groups. We identified important issues that needed more attention, and had in-depth discussions with the right people for the critical ones.
Phase 3 – Synthesis
We held workshops with key stakeholders to clarify what we’d learned so far and interpreted feedback from our engagements. Then, we pulled everything together from the people, process, and technology angles to shape interim recommendations, which we shared with both internal and external stakeholders and the broader review team.
Phase 4 – Resolution
We developed our final recommendations based on feedback from the interim round. By consulting with stakeholders and the broader review team, we developed options for the high-level future state – socialising these with the same group of stakeholders for final review.
xAmplify’s Impact
Our review was comprehensive and highlighted some key opportunities for improvement, bringing the ACQSCmore closely into line with best-practice standards set by other regulators. These included:
- Significantly increasing the workforce and developing a new operating model for the future.
- Governance reforms to enhance delivery capacity and address single points of failure.
- Improving data sharing with the Department of Health and Aged Care, as well as other entities.
- Laying the foundations for a comprehensive cybersecurity upgrade, including a detailed roadmap and budget plan to support a funding request to the Department of Finance.
The final report of the independent capability review was released by the Minister for Aged Care, the Hon Anika Wells MP, in July 2023. The Australian Government accepted the outcomes of the review and provided additional funding to the ACQSC to implement the recommendations. This included specific funding for both our cyber security and broader ICT and data recommendations.
A long-term partnership
Our partnership with the Department of Health and Aged Care and the ACQSCwas focused on mutual outcomes – and at times, this meant stepping outside of our agreed scope to rectify issues, respond to opportunities and unite stakeholders.
Trust can only be established through absolute transparency, and we made sure that costs and the effort towards deliverables were always ‘in the open’. This encouraged a sense of shared ownership between our teams.
Our goal from the start was to build capabilities and foster knowledge transfer within the ACQSC, and our commitment to identifying skills gaps, designing tailored uplift sessions, delivering hands-on coaching and mentoring to the ACQSC’s ICT leaders ensured this.
This approach enhanced the Commission’s ability to implement the recommendations of the review in the short-term, and has also created a respectful, trusting long-term partnership.