Helping Hand: Connecting Client Management to Care Delivery

About Helping Hand

Helping Hand is one of South Australia's largest aged care providers, operating residential care facilities, home care services, and retirement living across 30+ locations. Founded over 65 years ago, they serve thousands of older South Australians and their families.

As a not-for-profit organisation, Helping Hand is focused on delivering quality care while managing costs effectively and meeting increasingly complex regulatory requirements.

The Challenge

Helping Hand had invested in specialist aged care operational systems for care delivery and clinical management, but their front-of-house client management was fragmented:

• Disconnected Systems — Client enquiries, assessments, and admissions were managed separately from care delivery systems
• Manual Data Entry — Staff re-entered the same client information across multiple systems
• Lost Opportunities — Without proper tracking, potential clients fell through the cracks during the assessment process
• Family Communication — No centralised view of all interactions with clients and their families
• Reporting Gaps — Couldn't easily report on client acquisition, conversion rates, or pipeline

Our Solution

We implemented Dynamics 365 Sales as the client relationship hub, integrated with Helping Hand's existing aged care systems:

• Enquiry Management — All enquiries captured in one place, whether from website, phone, My Aged Care, or referrals
• Assessment Tracking — Guided process from initial contact through ACAT assessment to admission
• Integration Layer — Azure Logic Apps connecting Dynamics 365 to care management systems
• Family Portal — Power Apps portal for families to track their loved one's journey
• Occupancy Dashboard — Real-time visibility into bed availability and waitlist status

Results

• Client journey from enquiry to admission is now fully visible and managed
• Staff save significant time with automated data flow between systems
• Management can forecast occupancy and plan capacity more effectively
• Families appreciate the transparency and communication throughout the process
• Regulatory reporting is more accurate with centralised data

The Integration Challenge

Aged care is unique in that no single system does everything. Clinical care, rostering, medication management, and billing often use specialist systems that need to share data.

Our approach was to position Dynamics 365 as the "relationship hub"—the system of record for all client and family interactions—while allowing specialist systems to handle what they do best. Azure Logic Apps and Service Bus provide the integration backbone that keeps everything in sync.

This architecture means Helping Hand can evolve individual components (like switching clinical systems) without rebuilding everything.

Ongoing Partnership

Mayasoft continues to support Helping Hand with system enhancements, additional integrations, and adapting to regulatory changes including the new Aged Care Act requirements coming into effect.