iCare.Support

There are some stories we love to share. Our medical history isn't one of them.

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Inspiration

There are some stories we love to share.

Our medical history isn't one of them.

iCare.Support is a service provider, dedicated to helping Australians proactively manage their health, wellbeing and social connection today to so that they can age in place, healthier, happier, for longer.

By 2066, it is projected that older people in Australia will make up between 21% and 23% of the total population. iCare.Support takes the opportunity to support this group to age in place, by efficiently supporting the way their holistic health information is retained across their life journey. iCare.Support is a service solution for older people to reduce the need to share and re-share information provided across medical history, preferences, conditions, living situation and care needs with different doctors, allied health professionals, family & friends and care providers.

Backstory

Our team identified that through our lived experiences from ourselves as carers, listening to friends and family, and in working in industry:

  • Older people get frustrated by the process of having to repeatedly provide their story, which leads to disengagement, blame mentality, lack of ownership over their health outcomes.
  • Family members feel increasing sense of responsibility to 'case manage' for their ageing family member.
  • Key information get lost, missed and forgotten or opportunities for accessing funding is overlooked.
  • Ageing members of the community aren't proactively optimising their chances of ageing in place.
  • Often for older people, their health responses are reactive to a major incident when by then, it's often too late for re-enablement.

Design goals

iCare.Support is a service that builds on the almost 'onion' layer Buurtzorg model of care around a self-managed client. Available as an opt-in service from 65 years, transitioning to an opt-out service from 70 years.

  • Client Focus - activity feed containing Discovery Options for the client based on the preferences they've entered on the app, facilitated by AI on what events are on that the client may be interested in.
  • Informal Network - centralised communication hub shared from the client, network of family and friends as a social feed supporting day-to-day care.
  • Aged Care Provider - depending on the stage of aged care service provision, clients may have an existing connection with an aged care provider company providing services.
  • Formal Network - hub of information for aged care providers, allied health and medical appointment information consolidated on a platform with security levels established for visibility across each group.

At each level communication has tagging functionality to streamline available information to cater to the roles in the client's formal or informal care.

What we've done

iCare.Support was started on a fantastic pitch by Ian, our founding problem owner with a lived experience across supporting his Mum to tell her story multiple times over at various appointments. The team formed on this shared story, with lived experience across supporting parents, grandparents and industry experience with aged care.

Across the team, we divided and conquered the ageing in place problems presented:

  • Community connectivity: reduce and prevent social isolation and loneliness
  • Care at home: support for episodic or ongoing care for independent and dignified ageing at home

The service solution itself was built on a series of brainstorming rounds by the team, transitioning to a foundational business case template in Miro, through to to Figma prototyping and wire framing for the pitch.

Challenges

  • Initially it was tricky to define grants to propose as available funding options that weren't directed at aged care providers.
  • Defining our scope, our team had fantastic ideas across multiple areas so we added these to a product backlog along the way!

Accomplishments

  • Building in our service idea based on a real life example.
  • Developing and integrating various ideas across the group.
  • Building wireframes and process flows to visualise our service.

What we learned

  • Mentor feedback is invaluable!
  • Using new software tools like Figma.
  • Opportunities available though I2N & Hackathons.

What's next for iCare.Support

  • Feedback on the overall concept.
  • Volunteers to interview for market research + to further refine the concept.
  • To win this Hackathon so that we may have every opportunity of developing this solution.
  • Exploration of opportunities to integrate with other existing government services.

Built With

  • figma
  • miro
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