The Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia began using aXcelerate’s student management system to oversee and streamline their student record management and reporting processes.
Background Information
The Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia (AHCSA) is the peak body representing Aboriginal Community Controlled Health, Substance Misuse Services and Aboriginal Health Advisory Committees throughout South Australia. Since 2001, the organisation has been an independent Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and consequently governed and managed by an Aboriginal Board of Directors.
During the last fifteen years, AHCSA has also developed a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) as part of their Education, Training and Workforce department, which provides a range of nationally accredited training programs.
The key qualifications AHCSA deliver are Certificate III and IV in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Primary Health Care and Certificate IV in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Primary Health Care Practice.
The majority of students enrolling in these programs are existing employees from the health sector who are looking to enhance and develop their skills, progress their career or require further training as part of their employment. In addition to this, AHCSA also cater to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people looking to enter into the health industry. To further enhance their employment opportunities, AHCSA incorporate work placement options within their Primary Health Care qualifications.
These courses and AHCSA itself, are a unique health care training provider, as they cater specifically to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. Currently, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people make up only 3.6% of the total students undertaking Vocational Education and Training (VET) Australia-wide. According to NCVER, this participation rate is lower than any other equity group in Australia.
To address this statistic, AHCSA has developed and implemented cultural frameworks for all of their training activities so that each training and assessment model places Aboriginal culture at the core. From development, to implementation and reviewing training programs, AHCSA ensures constant input and feedback from Aboriginal people is incorporated in order to deliver training products that are culturally relevant.
In addition to offering specified Nationally Accredited Training, AHCSA provides multiple services to the wider community. An integral part of AHCSA is promoting the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health to both mainstream health services and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait community. Consequently, AHCSA provides many educational programs to the wider community which cover issues such as ear health, eye health, maternal health (with a specific focus on smoking effects) and rheumatic heart disease control.
When initially establishing their RTO, AHCSA were manually using spreadsheets and the state-based reporting system STELA to manage their student reporting and general administration tasks. However, as the years progressed and the organisation grew in both student numbers and training programs offered, it became apparent that a more comprehensive management platform was needed.
AHCSA went under a significant operational update in 2013 and as part of this update, they made the executive decision to implement the student management system, aXcelerate.
Solutions
Because Aboriginal Health Council works in conjunction with multiple Health Services across South Australia, the use of a record management tool was greatly needed.
The initial implementation of aXcelerate was a big project, as the organisation had to change many of their manual processes and transfer their existing data from multiple spreadsheets into aXcelerate. To aid this process, aXcelerate’s data migration team worked closely with AHCSA to ensure all data was migrated correctly.
Since those first initial stages, aXcelerate has grown to become a key part of the operations and running of AHCSA’s RTO. Because the student management system is cloud-based, AHCSA’s student data has become much more accessible to staff no matter their location. This has allowed for a much more streamlined reporting process. Furthermore, the automated guidance tools provided within aXcelerate’s reporting feature help AHCSA to identify any errors relating to compliance, particularly in regards to USI verification. This ensures AHCSA can amend any compliance errors before sending them to the relevant funding bodies.
In addition to using aXcelerate’s reporting and compliance tools, AHCSA has implemented a number of administrative-based tools, which help make their day-to-day operations more efficient. For example, AHCSA has utilised aXcelerate’s CRM functionality in order to send bulk emails to students in a particular course or a whole course, within a few clicks.
They have also utilised the calendar feature, so that they can schedule in courses, workshops and view or update these via aXcelerate, from any place at any time.
All of these tools help AHCSA to effectively deliver training to their students, which in turn helps ensure they continue to provide a holistic perspective of health to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community of South Australia.
Looking to the future
As AHCSA continues their partnership with aXcelerate, a key focus will be on both the development of a manager portal and eLearning opportunities.
As a membership-based, peak-body, AHCSA exists to support the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (ACCHO) sector. Because of this, being able to communicate effectively with ACCHO’s is essential to AHCSA’s operations as an RTO, especially considering that a majority of students are already employed within the health sector. Consequently, AHCSA is looking to develop a manager portal that can integrate with aXcelerate, in order to allow ACCHO members to easily access student or training data when they need to.
AHCSA also hope to focus more time on eLearning options in the coming months and how these options could enhance their current product offerings to students. The ability to use aXcelerate’s student management system as a foundation for launching eLearning tools will provide some exciting new opportunities for AHCSA.
aXcelerate look forward to working on these ongoing developments with AHCSA and to help ensure that AHCSA can continue to focus on delivering quality training while spending less time and energy on the administration work involved.
To find out more about AHCSA and any of their courses visit their website
To find out more about any of the aXcelerate features mentioned above, visit the aXcelerate website
