You might hear us touting ‘The only Australian digital care management platform built by care, for care’ quite a bit. But what does that really mean?
Put simply, it’s our way of saying, we build software that ‘walks the walk’.
Being originally developed for, and continuously developed for, one of Australia's fastest-growing home care providers, Five Good Friends, the team behind Lookout’s home care management software understands the day-to-day challenges care providers face.
It’s by truly understanding these challenges in-depth, and building solutions to these challenges, that The Lookout Way has empowered Five Good Friends to grow so quickly, whilst maintaining, if not improving care quality.
Here’s the background to shed some light on what ‘built by care, for care’ really means.
How it all began
In 2016, Simon Lockyer and Nathan Betteridge were on a mission to revolutionise home care through home health technologies, as they could see a sector in need of change. They believed that with the right technology, they could make home care more transparent, which would improve the care people were receiving.
So they started working on software for the home care industry. But they realised that in order to create the right product, they needed to understand the challenges of home care and ageing well.
So, they launched their own home care business – Five Good Friends.
The concept behind Five Good Friends was to put technology at the centre of home care service delivery. Simon and Nathan wanted the technology to improve the home care experience for not only the care recipient and care worker, but also to improve the day-to-day operational experience for the providers.
“When we started Five Good Friends, we found that providing care can sometimes be chaotic. However, we harnessed that chaos and gave people the opportunity to collaborate, draw insights and take action. The result is a streamlined digital care management platform that allows for calm, collaboration and, ultimately, better care,” - Simon says.
The platform helped spearhead Five Good Friends' success, enabling them to grow whilst providing optimal care. When the word got out about the success of the platform, other providers started inquiring and in 2020 Simon and Nathan made the executive decision to turn the platform into a stand-alone cloud-based software solution for other home care providers to use.
Lookout was born!
Today, home care providers nationwide rely on Lookout to manage the demands of home care, grow their business, and enhance client care.
Being an all-in-one care management software solution, it has everything a home care organisation needs to operate at the top of its game. Lookout is used to connect all departments within a care organisation, and also connect care teams, to workers, and to clients - providing the much-needed transparency and collaboration required for the dispersed operation of home care.
Some of the great features and benefits you’ll find within Lookout include:
- Rostering, scheduling and remote care workforce management functionality,
- A central platform where all aspects of a person’s care can be monitored,
- A communication tool between family members, support workers and home care staff,
- A number of tools to support better compliance and decision-making, and
- A finance platform to track Home Care Package and CHSP claims, client statements and unspent funds.
Today, Lookout continues to empower Five Good Friends’ business, and the first-hand learnings gained from Five Good Friends are used to improve the Lookout platform continuously.
“The great news is, when other home care providers choose to run their operations with Lookout, they too benefit from the applied-hand learnings we gain from Five Good Friends… as we turn these learnings into solutions within Lookout,” - Nathan says.
Being an all-in-one care management software solution, it has everything a home care organisation needs to operate at the top of its game.
It’s the first-hand applied knowledge from running Five Good Friends that makes the Lookout platform such an intuitive and beneficial solution for care providers, ” - Nathan says.
“Because we run a care organisation, we don’t see ourselves as a software vendor. We see ourselves as an industry partner who is highly invested in the success of Five Good Friends and other care providers who use Lookout. The applied knowledge we have allows us to respond quickly to the industry’s ever-changing demands and regulatory requirements, and create simplified solutions within Lookout which brings calmness and confidence to providers, workers and clients who rely upon the platform. I guess you can say, we have skin in the game and this helps us develop better solutions,”- Simon says.
To explore how Lookout can help empower your home care business, reach out today.
