Giving Aged Care facilities clarity during Australia’s largest funding reform

Supporting 60,000+ residential aged-care beds through the national shift to AN-ACC.

The challenge facing aged-care facilities

Overview

In response to the Royal Commission, the Australian Government replaced ACFI with AN-ACC, a new funding model for residential aged care. This shift required providers to adapt quickly so they could understand funding outcomes, gather accurate evidence, and reduce compliance risk during the transition.

Clinical Manager, Telstra Health’s aged-care platform, is used across 60,000+ residential beds. Its existing ACFI workflows could not support the AN-ACC model. Staff urgently needed clarity, predictable workflows, and confidence ahead of government assessments.

I led the UX work to design a new assessment experience aligned with AN-ACC structure, guided by real user insight and shaped around the needs of clerical and nursing staff.

Problem

Aged Care facilities needed a reliable, structured way to understand AN-ACC funding outcomes and collect evidence that would withstand audits and assessor reviews. The existing ACFI workflow did not map to AN-ACC, and attempting to retrofit it would introduce risk, confusion, and errors.

Key challenges:

  • High staff anxiety around funding loss

  • Fear that government assessors could misinterpret resident needs

  • Difficulty finding and linking evidence across multiple parts of the system

  • Unclear terminology and inconsistent UI patterns

  • No way to preview or validate AN-ACC outcomes

  • Legacy interface with high cognitive load

Facilities needed a clear, linear workflow that made evidence capture easy, transparent, and tied to each part of the assessment.

Funding reform and design implications

From ACFI to AN-ACC

The move from ACFI to AN-ACC changed how funding is calculated and who controls the assessment process.

Under ACFI:

  • Facilities completed their own assessments

  • Internal “quick calculators” helped estimate funding

  • Some providers focused on “resident shopping” to optimise revenue

  • Evidence was often scattered across documents and notes

Under AN-ACC:

  • Independent government assessors complete the classification

  • Funding is tied to a standardised national assessment tool

  • Evidence must be clear, traceable, and defensible

  • Providers have less control and higher anxiety about outcomes

For providers, the reform was not only a new formula. It was a loss of perceived control and a higher bar for documentation and transparency.

After analysing both models and walking through the current ACFI workflow, I found that:

  • AN-ACC domains do not map cleanly to ACFI

  • Scoring logic is different

  • Evidence expectations are more structured

  • Retrofitting would increase complexity rather than reduce it

Based on this analysis, a targeted redesign became the clearer, safer option.

The change from ACFI to AN-ACC

AN-ACC Classifications

Before recommending a redesign, I explored whether the existing ACFI workflow could be adapted for AN-ACC. Reuse would have been faster to deliver, easier for development, and less disruptive for staff.

AN-ACC Assessment Criteria

  1. Technical Nursing Requirements

  2. Resource Utilisation Groups & Activities of Daily Living (RUG-ADL)

  3. Australia-modified Karnofsky Performance Status (AKPS)

  4. Palliative Care

  5. Frailty

  6. Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk

  7. De Moreton Mobility Index (DEMMI) - Modified

  8. Australian Functional Measure (AFM)

  9. Behaviour Resource Utilisation Assessment (BRUA)

Old ACFI funding calculator

What this meant for Clinical Manager

These changes created specific requirements for Clinical Manager and for the UX:

  • Staff needed a way to understand likely AN-ACC outcomes before an assessor visit

  • Evidence had to be easy to find and link to assessment items

  • The system needed to reduce anxiety by showing a clear, stepwise process

  • Old ACFI workflows and calculators could not simply be repurposed

  • The design had to support both day-to-day documentation and funding preparation

The UX response focused on building a resident-centred assessment flow that aligned with the AN-ACC tool, while giving facilities better visibility of their evidence and funding risk.

Can we adapt current workflows?

What staff needed to feel supported

Research and insights

I interviewed clerical staff from five residential aged-care facilities. Their concerns were consistent and shaped the redesign:

  • Anxiety about misclassification and revenue loss

  • Confusion around new AN-ACC requirements

  • Difficulty finding clinical evidence in the existing system

  • Desire for predictable, linear assessment sequences

  • Need for terminology that reflected real practice

Key insights:

  • Evidence must be accessible in context

  • The assessment must flow in a clear, expected sequence

  • Terminology must match the language used on the floor

  • Layout must reduce cognitive load

  • Repurposing ACFI screens would create risk and confusion

Synthesised insights across 4 facilities.

Design strategy

The strategy centred on creating a safe, predictable assessment experience within a legacy system:

  • Align the user flow directly with AN-ACC’s structure

  • Build evidence-tagging into each step of the workflow

  • Use consistent layout patterns to reduce cognitive load

  • Validate direction with clerical users through iterative testing

  • Work closely with BAs to interpret government scoring logic

  • Deliver incrementally to fit within the legacy technical constraints

Design decisions & iterations

Key decisions

  • A structured assessment flow
    A linear, step-by-step flow reflects AN-ACC structure and reduces confusion.

  • Evidence tagging
    Staff can attach documents, notes, or observations directly to questions.

  • Consistent hierarchy
    Layouts were simplified to reduce cognitive load and improve scanning.

  • Embedded progress notes
    Users add context without leaving the workflow.

  • Terminology alignment
    Labels were updated to mirror language used in facilities.

Testing insights

Testing revealed clear expectations:

  • Users wanted reassurance about where they were in the flow

  • Evidence needed to be visible in context, not hidden

  • Navigation had to be predictable and stable

  • Terminology required refinement for clarity

Iterations implemented

  • Adding an editable progress note component

  • Refining the tagging workflow

  • Improving hierarchy to prevent navigation jumps

  • Updating terminology

  • Strengthening visual cues for progress

A structured assessment flow

Evidence tagging

Analysis of work delivered

Impact

  • Improved accuracy in AN-ACC preparation

  • Reduced anxiety for clerical staff

  • Consistent navigation and clearer hierarchy

  • Stronger evidence capture for audits

  • Readiness across 60,000+ residential beds

  • Reinforced Clinical Manager’s leadership position

90% ease-of-use rating

“The UX is really impressive!” - Scalabrini

My role

Senior UX Designer leading:

  • Discovery and research synthesis

  • Workflow and interaction design

  • Component architecture and foundational patterns

  • Prototyping and iteration

  • Alignment with BAs, engineering, and clinical SMEs

  • Translating complex rules into clear user flows

Key statistics

< 2 min evidence lookup

Reduced from 6–10 minutes

+38% confidence

Staff preparing AN-ACC assessments.

Half the navigation steps

Single assessment screen, down from 4–5 disconnected screens

Clear audit-ready assessment trail

All the evidence found in context

Completeness & accuracy

Fewer follow-up corrections across all five facilities.

Reflection

This project required clear prioritisation and disciplined decision-making. The accelerated timeline and legacy system constraints shaped every stage of the work. By grounding the workflow in user insight and AN-ACC structure, we delivered a safer, clearer assessment experience that prepared providers for the funding transition. The project reinforced the importance of designing for long-term system evolution while delivering meaningful value immediately.

Project snapshot