Client
Department of Health and Aged Care and Diabetes Australia
Scope of work
Industry
Federal and State Government

The National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) is an initiative of the Australian Government which commenced in 1987 and is administered by Diabetes Australia. The NDSS helps people with diabetes self-manage their condition by providing access to services, support, and diabetes products.

Overview

Atturra has been working with the Department of Health and Diabetes Australia since 2018 to reduce manual processing and streamline access to NDSS products and services. With more than 100,000 new annual NDSS registrations requiring certification from a health professional, a portal for health professionals has been created to reduce the administrative burden.

The 2022 portal release for health professionals not only provides an electronic option to using paper forms, significantly decreasing processing delays, but it also enables patients to access subsidised diabetes products, including continuous and flash glucose monitoring devices, on the same day.

Fast Facts

  • 1.4+ million Australians registered on the NDSS, with more than 100,000 new Registrants joining each year
  • 170+ management and system administrator users spread across all states and territories in Australia
  • More than 10,000,000 records attached to those Australians and managed by the new system
  • 1,200+ health professionals verified within weeks of the portal going live

Problem

For someone with diabetes to access services, health information and subsidised products, they can register with the NDSS. To register, patients must complete a form and have key elements certified by a health professional. In the past, these registrations were only completed via printed forms, which could take up to two weeks to process. This laborious system needed to be streamlined for Registrants, health professionals and administrators. In addition, the MVP portal functionality needed to be enhanced to make applying for subsidised continuous and flash glucose monitoring products even simpler.

“On the first release day, about 550 health professionals created a log-on and were validated. More than 500 applications for continuous glucose monitoring subsidies were started that same day. This was a great result for a brand-new portal.”

Tony Wynd
Department of Health and Aged Care

Solution

Atturra rolled out a central CRM using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the first phase.

The Dynamics PowerApps portal interfaces with a database of more than 1.4 million Registrants. It allows health professionals to add data directly into the portal and certify it. The user receives an SMS confirmation within minutes. Health professionals can also maintain the visibility of Registrant details if their certification is delayed.

Based on an expanded government policy, new functionality was introduced rapidly (less than two months) to allow health professionals to support eligible people with type 1 diabetes to access subsidised continuous glucose monitoring and flash glucose monitoring products.

Outcomes achieved

The Atturra team supported a digital transformation of application and services processes that were previously paper-based and manual.

Registration that could take up to two weeks now takes as little as two minutes. Manual administration time and human error were significantly reduced. Health professionals can also maintain greater visibility of what services their patients are accessing from the NDSS.

The rapid introduction of online applications for subsidised continuous and flash glucose monitoring products has simplified the process for thousands of NDSS Registrants applying for life-changing support via their health professionals.

Technologies

Microsoft Technologies used:

  • Dynamics 365 (Customer Engagement)
  • Power BI
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Service Bus
  • Azure Logic Apps
  • Azure Active Directory

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