CDO Interview: ACC’s digital direction

VIEW - Peter Fletcher, ACC Deputy Chief Executive, Enterprise Change Delivery

Helping injured New Zealanders recover and keeping them well is at the heart of everything we do at ACC – a goal we share with our dedicated community of health providers.

The provider network is how our clients receive the treatment they need. While ACC facilitates that journey, we know we cannot achieve our goal without the tremendous work of the more than 30,000 health practitioners registered with us.

We also know that work is becoming increasingly difficult. Even before the arrival of Covid-19, the industry was feeling the strain. But those challenges have been exacerbated by the ongoing effects of the pandemic, workforce shortages and realignment of the health system.

Understanding these pressures while making it easier for providers to engage with us and do their job is where ACC can make a difference. Technology plays a vital part in this.

If we can use digital solutions to reduce the administrative burden, and eventually reach a point where we can facilitate the flow of information amongst providers, they will have more time to focus on what is important – the patients.

Reducing the burden
Our digital direction is focused on integrating with provider systems wherever possible.

Providers know what works for them. It’s much more efficient if we can work within provider technology rather than having them switch between a system we have inserted into the process.

One of the best examples of this, a direct result of provider feedback, was the introduction of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to facilitate self-service.

APIs link into providers’ systems, allowing them to submit information and query the status of claims from ACC. We have more than six million interactions a year with providers through this technology, made up of 2.5 million submissions and 3.75 million queries. Each of these is an avoided phone call to ACC for a provider, time better spent on patients.

The use of SureMed to make the secure transfer of medical notes faster and easier has also made a considerable difference for GPs.

Between 2015-2020, ACC requests for medical information from GPs almost doubled, from 33,000 to 64,000, at an average of 28 minutes to fulfil a request.

The SureMed pilot showed a significant reduction in the time between requests being made and information being received. Since it was rolled out in August last year, the average doctor and staff time to complete a request has fallen to 8-12 minutes. The average turnaround time for health information requests has also been halved to around 5 days, allowing us to make faster decisions for clients and reducing the admin involved for our providers.

It’s important to note that not every provider has their own management system and we need to help ensure equity of access for clients.

We are currently in the process of upgrading these ACC-owned self-service options, moving from legacy technology platforms to our Provider Hub. This will create a secure, modern platform that will deliver an enhanced customer experience alongside an improved ability to innovate with our provider community.

Looking ahead
One area we are committed to improving over the next two years is provider payments. We have already started looking at technology to simplify that process and make it faster for providers to be paid. It’s all part of the ongoing effort to reduce the administrative burden and maximising the time a clinician has in front of a patient.

On top of this, ACC can play a vital role connecting our provider network and facilitating the flow of information.

The more we integrate with organisations across the sector, the better our understanding of clients will be.

We are currently establishing the framework to be able to join up across the government eco-system, with the likes of the Ministry of Health, Inland Revenue and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, to reduce the amount of information that needs to be supplied direct from practitioners to us.

It comes down to implementing technology that improves the provider experience, a priority which spreads right across ACC.

If we can get that right, the benefits will be passed onto New Zealanders which is, ultimately, what we all want.

If you want to contact eHealthNews.nz regarding this View, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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