Episode 16 - VillageLocal

In this episode, Scott Lynch (Managing Director of Community Therapy) speaks with Jim Moraitis (Founder and CEO of Village Local), who shares his journey of starting an organization that helps older Australians navigate the complexities of the aged care system.

They discuss ways to best navigate the aged care sector and the importance of prioritising empathy and emotional sensitivity in healthcare.

Takeaways

• Building trust and authority is crucial in navigating the changing aged care landscape.
• Empathy and care are essential in providing quality healthcare experiences.
• Prioritizing the consumer experience is essential and greatly improves the way an organisation operates.

Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction and Background
1:20 - The Why Behind Village Local
6:34 - Starting Village Local
10:33 - Building Trust and Authority
17:47 - Barriers in the Aged Care Sector
23:41 - Empathy and Care in Healthcare
35:07 - Creating Systems for Better Support
45:13 - Prioritising The Consumer Experience
50:08 - Concluding Thoughts

Resources

VillageLocal Website - https://www.villagelocal.com.au/
VillageLocal Community Hub - https://community.villagelocal.com.au/
CarePath Navigator Program - https://www.carepath.com.au/
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@villagelocal
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/VillageLocal
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-moraitis-55816545/

Community Therapy Website - https://www.communitytherapy.com.au/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0jWxssC757MijCsTBH_xhg
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/communitytherapyau
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/community-therapy-au/
Scott's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottlynchct/

Transcript

Scott Lynch (00:23.126)
Welcome to the Community Therapy Podcast where we talk all things community healthcare. I'm your host, Scott Lynch. Today, we're talking about the changing age care landscape and how to build organizational and team member trust and authority as a way to navigate change and drive positive consumer outcomes. I have Jim Moratus, founder and director of Village Local and the Care Path Program, who I will let.

introduce himself.

Jim (00:54.56)
G'day Scott, g'day listeners. Thanks for the intro and the invitation to chat. As you mentioned, we run an organization called Village Local that helps older Australians across the country navigate the complexities of the aged care system in order to access the support services that they need to continue living independently and well in the home. So that's what we've been doing for the last few years and having a lot of fun.

Scott Lynch (01:20.994)
Before we dive into how we navigate constant change in aged care, tell us a little bit about your story. Where did this all start? What was the why? Why did you do all of this?

Jim (01:30.772)
Yeah. The big why, right? I won't go back too far, because I turned 40 years old two weeks ago, it'll take a while to catch up. But the short version is, well, let me just say this. Everyone I speak to who's in the aged care sector, professionals, industry professionals I'm referring to, I can't think of anybody that I've come across and there's...

I think thousands of people over the years, that have said, you know, I went to school and I came out of school going, age care, that's what I'm gonna go into, the career I'm gonna pursue, right? Everyone pretty much has a story of how they fell into it. And that was certainly my situation. So my background's in, my formal background, training backgrounds in biomedical engineering. So I spent the formative years of my career as a biomedical engineer.

Scott Lynch (02:08.619)
Hehehehehehe

Jim (02:29.096)
working across mainly New South Wales, but across Australia, and then towards the later years internationally, really taking a look at latest forms of technology that would make it easier, better workflow to deliver healthcare in general, mainly with a specialty in cardiology and radiology. And then that kind of led me into the later years of my corporate career, where I got really involved in

population health and chronic disease management and integrated healthcare models that essentially addressed many of the barriers that were in the way of people with certain clinical conditions accessing healthcare. So it was like, how do we solve the triple threat? Cost, quality and access. And coming up with multi-stakeholder initiatives that looked at that. And specifically, we kind of narrowed it down to certain disease states.

So while I was sort of keeping busy with all that, had this serendipitous moment with my neighbor. I live in a little inner city suburb called Marrickville in Sydney. And I pulled up from work one day and my, at the time, 87 year old neighbor flagged me over and she said, oh, Jim, can you help me replace the garden hose? And I said, yeah, no worries, Lillian. And you know, did that, had the five minutes of pleasantries, I could see her knuckles kind of riddled with arthritis and all that.

Five minutes of pleasantries, no worries, Lillian ducked inside. And then about a week and a half later, my wife, who was a social worker at the time, the kids' hospital, Westmead, she pulled up from work and out of the corner of her eye, it was raining on the day, and in the corner of her eye she sees Lillian lying down in her front yard, between her front door and her front gate on her tiled footpath. She'd been lying there for a number of hours. She'd been calling out for help. She had slipped over in the rain, broken her hip.

and was immobile. So obviously rushed to her aid. She did her stint at RPA hospital and that was the catalyst for Lillian finding herself in a nursing home. And that was a real shame because she was, she certainly could have lived independently and well at home, but with no family support around and dealing with the aged care system in what I call crisis mode, it's a recipe for disaster, things move slowly.

Jim (04:56.888)
and the safest place for Lillian to be in a discharge from ultimately rehab was the nursing home. So that's where Lillian lived out her last days. But once I eventually got over the, if I'm being honest, the guilt with the situation, because it was only a week and a half that I saw how frail she was. And I didn't even ask, you know, is there anything else I could do to help you?

Scott Lynch (05:22.828)
Hmm

Jim (05:25.988)
I felt really guilty about that because this is like chronic disease management and population health. That's something I dedicated my whole career to. And for it to happen right underneath my nose in my neighborhood, so I thought to myself, it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. Somebody who's problem aware. So with that, kind of was actually reflecting on it with my mom, telling my mom the story. And I said, ma, how did the oldies in the villages of Italy, of Italy, where my mom was born, they stay safe and well.

Scott Lynch (05:39.007)
Hmm.

Jim (05:55.1)
live out their years in their little villages. And she said to me, Jim, there's always a local person in the village that would keep an eye out for the neighbor. And I just sort of spurted it out. I said, oh, finally I was a better village local for Lillian. And that's kind of like how we got our name, right? So, that was the start of it. I just thought, well, what could we be doing to facilitate those conversations, those watering hole conversations about, oh, you know, Lillian.

Scott Lynch (06:01.067)
Hmm.

Scott Lynch (06:10.76)
Amazing.

Jim (06:25.212)
You know, what are the things that aren't as easy as they used to be? Oh, the council does something like that. Oh, you know, maybe we should tap into that. Like little things like that.

Scott Lynch (06:34.854)
So then what happened, you just booted up a website and registered a business name. Ha ha ha.

Jim (06:40.344)
No, no, no. Let's put it in context, right? I was six years ago. So I was about 34 at the time. I was just finishing off the prime of my life, right? I was finishing off my MBA. I was in my last year of an MBA. I had a one year old child. I was flying in and out of the country regularly. It's fair to say life was pretty chaotic. And my wife was

Scott Lynch (06:46.73)
Hmm. A young man.

Scott Lynch (06:51.819)
I'm done.

Jim (07:08.648)
Like living that, I like to say rock star lifestyle, but it certainly wasn't that. So I was busy, right? And starting an organization was not on my mind. But I just thought, I don't know, like I just thought, well, something needs to change. Something needs to happen. And actually the first thing that I did was I just reached out to the local inner west council where I lived and I just said, hey guys, like what are we doing? I just told them about Lillian situation. I said, what are we doing as a community?

to help our older members of the inner West stay safe, stay well. And they invited me in for a meeting and I was really surprised with what they told me actually. At the time I knew nothing about aged care, nothing. No exposure to it whatsoever. Didn't even really associate with many old people. Didn't have many in my life, like most probably most of your listeners as well, right?

So I was really surprised what they said. They said to me, Jim, they brought up their website, they brought out all these brochures and they showed me because they wanted me to hand them out and stuff like that. I said, look at all these wonderful initiatives we've got. We've got community checking calls, we've got a change your light bulb service, we've got all these social events, we've got a community, but like so many things. And I was blown away. I thought they were gonna tell me things like, oh, there's no money for this and we can't do that. And

But what they said to me was, and this was a real eye-opener, they said to me, our biggest challenge is not spinning up the services. Our biggest challenge is actually running the last mile, getting it to the people who need it most, the most vulnerable, the most vulnerable are typically the ones who are most socially isolated, the ones that, um, I may even not even be problem aware like Lillian, Lillian was not aware.

how at risk she was of ending up in a nursing home. She was not aware of that sequence of events, that little perfect storm, which doesn't have to be actually that perfect to land into a nursing home. So that's kind of where I sort of got myself thinking, like, oh, you know what? Like, that's actually my core skill set. That's what I've been doing professionally, bearing in mind like with big budgets, with large corporate organizations and large...

Scott Lynch (09:13.326)
Mm-hmm.

Jim (09:33.272)
you know, multi-hospital networks, so there's big budgets to do these population health projects, but I thought to myself, like, at the end of the day, it's just about finding an efficient way of building a relationship with a person who is looking for ways to better their situation, may not be fully problem aware of how to better that, or solution aware of how to better that

Jim (10:03.2)
things could be better. So how do we as an organization, as a community, get that message there and start a relationship to start the watering hole conversation? And that's where I just thought, well, look, I'm gonna get involved in that little project. I didn't even see it as an aged care problem. I just saw it as a, get a message to the local community problem. And that was my foray into it. So to answer your question, was it a website? No, it was a piece of paper,

Scott Lynch (10:12.023)
Hmm.

Scott Lynch (10:30.806)
Hehehehe

Jim (10:33.undefined)
uh, um, uh, organizational names, like event names and contact numbers. And I just handed it out to Lillian's friends in the local area. Well, I first of all sort of circled back with Lillian. I said, Lillian, were you aware of any of these things? She said, no. I said, all right, well, let me, let me hand these out to anybody, you know, in the area and I'll put my personal phone number on there as well. And if anybody wants, like they can call them directly, but if people get stuck, they can call me and I can plug them in. And that was the start of it. That was the start of the.

Scott Lynch (10:42.734)
Crazy.

Jim (11:03.575)
what is now known as the Core Path Program.

Scott Lynch (11:07.21)
That's just such a crazy story. But like, we have lots of people that I've spoken to over, you know, my years in, I guess, the professional world, whether that's in age care, disability, you know, hospital at home programs, just within the healthcare sector, but we know that this, you know, goes past healthcare and into other sectors, it's often people do fall into their passion area and their why and.

and often the most sustainable and successful stories of, you know, it's always hard to define what success is. I think success is, I think, I think, I think success is actually just, are you happy as an individual and fulfilled? And, and I would argue that it then extends out to, you know, your inner circles as well. So success for me,

Jim (11:43.328)
I was about to say successful. I got a lot of battle scars mate.

Scott Lynch (12:04.182)
I was asked to define that actually recently at a disability event that I spoke at and someone from the crowd asked like, what recommendations do you have for all of us to be as successful as you? And I gave no recommendations and I just spent the next couple of minutes, you know, trying to debate what success means and that person should, you know, spend some time thinking about that for themselves. And I just reflected and said,

For me personally, success is simply, am I happy? Is my wife happy? Are my little kiddies, three of them happy? And are our team at community therapy happy? And just happiness circles basically, rather than judging other things like finance or whatever else people define success with. That certainly doesn't fill my boat up. But yeah, I think what shines through to me in that story is that you weren't.

Jim (12:47.148)
Yeah.

Jim (12:53.908)
Yep, yep.

Scott Lynch (13:01.986)
you know, really identifying a long-term path of business opportunity there. It was more, what is the problem here for one individual? Do others have that? Am I passionate about that? Yes, I am. And then naturally an opportunity then came to, and a business really is then a vehicle to just help more people when it's a great business. And you're telling me now that there's a community of 25,000 people that

a part of Village Local, which is unbelievable.

Jim (13:31.768)
check it out. Like you go to the village local community. It's like it really does blow my mind. It really does. You got to put it in perspective, right? 25,000 people is a bloody drop in the ocean compared to the 1.1 million people that are currently, older Australians that are receiving community support services. And like I've got a team of 10 people that having one-on-one conversations with older Australians every day of the week except Sundays. And

Scott Lynch (13:47.747)
Hmm.

Jim (14:01.396)
Like I look at that data, I look at the types of conversations we have. We measure the sentiment of those conversations. We measure keywords. We use a lot of tech to be able to do that at scale. And the takeaway from it is, is the data that gets reported on, in, you know, on headlines and on front pages and even in the Gen gen websites, it's like any data. You can make it tell any story you want to. Right.

Scott Lynch (14:26.531)
Hmm.

Jim (14:29.388)
The realities for us from our experience anyway, is of the conversations that we're having with people, so many of them are under assessed for the level of support that they need. So you look at the data and it says, 870,000 people getting commonwealth home support program, 200 and something thousand getting a home care package. And there's a six month waiting list for a home care package. So these metrics are like what pull the levers of policy.

But nobody's really talking about the fact that of the 875,000 people that want CHSP, what percentage of those people should not be on CHSP, should actually have a home care package? What percentage of people don't even know that home care package programs exists? What percentage of those CHSP people have canceled their services because it doesn't meet their needs and they think to themselves right now, they're sitting in their home isolated, thinking to themselves, I'm not bothering with my aged care.

It's useless not going down that path ever again.

Scott Lynch (15:30.852)
or are a CHSP consumer but have been unable to access any services.

Jim (15:37.728)
Exactly, exactly right. And then like to put fuel on the fire, we are a multicultural country and a big migration wave in the 50s and 60s with the Europeans and then the 70s and 80s with the Vietnamese and surrounding countries and now with ladies, the Middle East. These are migrants that have come from countries where there is an inherent distrust of government, right? Inherent distrust of government.

So you've got those communities living in our country, this wonderful country we call Australia, that do not want to contact the government because they fear of government getting involved in their personal business, right? So instead they're relying on their family members to be their primary carers. And that may have been all good and well in a previous generation in another country.

But in Australia, the cost of living in Australia, property prices, sending kids to school, bloody expensive. So mum and dad are working now. So that way of caring for our elderly, it's changing.

Scott Lynch (16:51.166)
Yeah, we don't have that informal model of care in Australia as a foundational model. It's certainly there for some families, but as a broad generalisation, our informal support networks of each older adult or a person living with disability are quite thin and we require quite formal networks of support and that's why we have our large aged care programmes and disability programmes in place.

Jim (17:17.348)
Exactly right. And this is where like for me, it got really interesting, right? Cause I thought to myself, all right, you know, six years ago, I'm one guy that's spending 30 seconds a week, you know, helping seniors plug into little services in the west and, and it was, it was, it was a shit experience because most of the time I didn't pick up my phone. I wasn't in an organic meeting or something like that. And then when I tried to call back, well, the person I was calling like

Scott Lynch (17:33.194)
Hehehe

Jim (17:47.26)
walking around all day with their mobile phone in their top pocket, right? They're, you know, they're leaving it at home sometimes. And so it's always this misconnection. So things needed to change. And, and the current way of delivering the program was, was just not a great consumer experience, all sustainable. So that's when I thought to myself, well, I need to figure out a way. Cause the people that we had helped got so much value out of it. Right. And they were telling other people about it, which is why more and more people were calling me.

So I thought to myself, we need to figure out a way to make this sustainable. And that's really where I accidentally fell into the first version of the business model to make it sustainable. And that was, I employed out of my own pocket, I employed a part-timer, a young person, just to essentially answer the call and direct people. Four hours a week, I did that, that kind of got it off. And I thought, all right, I'm happy to pay for that.

but we want to scale that up. So then I just thought, I took a lesson from a corporate gig and I just thought, well, who are the stakeholders on this journey? Who has a vested interest in keeping little Mrs. Smith safe and well in her? And I listed them all out and I thought to myself, all right, of those stakeholders, which ones of those are already somehow, in some form, investing?

to accomplish that. And when I used the term investing, I thought to myself, are they employing people to do it? Are they paying advertising? What are they doing? Are they sponsoring events to get the message out there? And they were the top of my list. I said, all right, I'm just gonna call that organization up and I'm gonna say, this is a person that is doing this work in this local area. Would you be kind enough to carve out some of your budget you're already doing and just sponsor that person?

And I was blown away. Like I just thought to myself, that was pretty damn easy. Cause not only were they willing to invest, they were actually like sponsored that person. They were actually saying, how do we, how do we scale that up? They were actually telling me the business model. So we did. So we were really, really lucky to have a network of organizations who see the work, the experience of the Care Path program and see the value in it and for the community.

Scott Lynch (19:47.101)
Amazing.

Jim (20:15.46)
and for their mission as an organization and support it. So it's a nice ecosystem that balance. But getting back to what you were saying, Scott, about organizations doing this sort of thing, it's really hard. Like it's not, it's very difficult. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Lynch (20:23.415)
Yeah.

Scott Lynch (20:34.018)
Very difficult, lots of barriers and you've mentioned some of them already.

Jim (20:40.16)
There's so many barriers, right? You've got, well, let's just talk like internally within an organization. And most organizations, at least the ones that I come across anyway, the frontline staff, so that might be, any staff member that is directly interfacing with a patient, with a consumer, with a client, whatever your organization defines them as, that person is typically never specializing

Scott Lynch (20:44.642)
Hehehehe

Jim (21:09.48)
in just one thing, they're wearing a few different hats. Even if you're a clinician, right? There's still a few different hats. You might be doing a little bit of project management, case management, there are say administration, particularly if you're a clinic owner or a clinic director. So you're wearing a few different hats. When it comes to speaking with a person who is experiencing elements of their life,

where they are losing their independence. And they're entering a stage of their life where they're realizing there's some things that my day to day that aren't as easy as they used to be.

that can be a really, really scary situation for somebody. You compound that with healthcare challenges, chronic disease, progressive conditions, and it can get really scary for somebody. So much so that the person experiencing it doesn't easily admit it to anybody, let alone themselves as well.

Scott Lynch (22:12.374)
think you've nailed like a significant barrier that maybe some people don't always think about, especially when this is what we do as healthcare professionals. Every day we talk to people that have significant functional impairments, and we help them future plan and, and that's, that's our business. That's what we do. And that gets normalized. And it can be very easy to somewhat forget that

this person in front of me right now, this is the first time they've experienced this, this situation, this funding scheme, these barriers, dealing with somebody like me who's, and I've experienced some of these things over time and got better of it, remembering that here I am as a young physiotherapist standing in and having the privilege of standing in 97 year old Beryl's house.

talking to her about my assessment and things that, you know, maybe need to now change. And maybe I'm going to recommend an occupational therapist come out to her home and modify the home that her and her husband built 60 years ago. And I think you need to get somebody in to help with your garden that you built and you take pride of. And it's to, yeah, there's a real power in always remembering.

Jim (23:28.469)
Yeah.

Jim (23:35.529)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott Lynch (23:41.986)
the significance of the life change that we navigate people through and to have empathy.

Jim (23:46.477)
that walls, the gravity of that conversation and that moment about, because you've got to think to yourself, this conversation that you're having with this person, this is just the tip of an iceberg. For that person to get to this point where to have you in their home or to early, even if it's their first call to an organization inquiring, there was so much that happened for that person before that led to it. Exactly. So for, yeah.

Scott Lynch (24:09.198)
conversations with their family, arguments with their family.

Jim (24:13.908)
family politics, self-admission, all that sort of stuff. So that means that moment, that moment where they've extended out to a healthcare professional, an educator, I'll give it a go. That is like such a fragile moment that needs to be nurtured with such, in such a delicate way that so many people, clients, consumers, and patients do that.

Scott Lynch (24:25.046)
I'll give it a go.

Jim (24:42.972)
And unfortunately, through no fault or no negative desire of the person on the other end of the phone, don't get the experience that they desperately need in that moment.

Scott Lynch (24:54.83)
So how does an organization embed communication that has that sense of empathy every time, every touch point, whether that's people face to face in somebody's home, whether that's on the phone, whether that's the tone of an email, how does an organization scale and embed that in a constantly changing...

landscape.

Jim (25:26.46)
Yeah, well, look, let me just say from the outset, I don't have the perfect answer, right? I do not have the perfect answer. I've been doing this for six years and we've made lots of mistakes on the way. But the biggest lesson that I've learned over this journey, even prior to the six years, the 20 years of healthcare experience that I've got, the biggest lesson that I've got is that you can't...

do, you can't have a big impact, you can't have a big changing moment, you can't have a watershed moment with one interaction. Right? And most of the things you do, interactions you have, choices you make in life, experiences you have with people, most of them are not one-way doors. They're normally circular. So you sort of come in, you stuff it up, you come out, you go back in and you hang out and try. Right? So with that mindset, with that lesson, you know, let's use the scenario of somebody

you know, 97 year old Beryl calls up community therapy. Right. And you guys are busy, a busy organization. Your team members on the cold face, the frontline, they're fielding calls all the time, right? They're fielding calls. Let's say that your team members followed the exact protocol of picking up a phone and did a great job with respect to executing on your protocol. But for the individual needs of Beryl,

Scott Lynch (26:24.226)
Hehehe

Jim (26:53.236)
it didn't hit the mark for her, right? This is normal, okay? The question that organizations could be asking themselves is, now that we have a connection with Beryl, we may not have intrinsically hit that nerve to help her take the next step or get access to support, but how do we foster and nurture that relationship over time? Right? Because quite often, that person will interact with an organization,

not get what they need and then go back out into the ether with no safety net. And with a perception of what not to do anymore. Right. So the question that we really need to be asking ourselves is as organizations is when we interact with our community and position ourselves as an educator, what does that mean and what does that mean as a, from a relationship over time? And how do we organize ourselves as an organization to

foster a relationship in an organic way so that even if we get a few points that didn't hit the mark, over time that consumer can form a holistic picture of who we are, what we're about, the fact that we know our stuff, the fact that they can trust us, and through all that mechanism we can build a positive influence, become a positive influence in their life and be a local port of call.

Be that educator, be that within your world, the village local of your community. So that's really what it's about from a business standpoint. How do you organize yourselves, organize your systems, organize your team members to say, let's not look at these one-on-one interactions, let's look at what they mean from a relationship management standpoint.

Scott Lynch (28:28.546)
Hmm

Scott Lynch (28:44.722)
Yeah, I think it touches on like the way we think about things is it's sometimes hard to define like, what is that one thing? Like, is it is it value number three that defines this for everyone? Is it is it you know, the thing halfway through the induction day that defines this for the rest of the organization's history? And, and I think

Jim (28:53.568)
How can you?

Jim (28:57.388)
Thank you.

Scott Lynch (29:11.49)
Realistically, it's all of the little things that add up. It's not one big thing. It's all the little things and it adds up over time. And you're only as good as your last day with these things. And it starts at all levels of the organization of making sure that you actually care for that human that is in front of you.

Jim (29:16.692)
Thank you.

Jim (29:31.993)
I was, as you were rattling those things, well, I just, I just sort of like pulled out our mission statement. I was like, you know, like that's a really good question, you know, because we've got eight things on our, on our thing. And for me, like I look at these things and a lot of these things in our induction we train for, but there's a few things that you can't train for, right? Like the, the full transparency one, be brutally honest and transparent, even if it hurts, it helps.

Scott Lynch (29:37.181)
Hehehehe

Scott Lynch (29:41.45)
Mm-hmm.

Jim (30:00.244)
Um, but the one that I think is, is really hits home that always that covers everything. And that is client obsessed. Just be client, be obsessed with the person you were dealing with. And you're not going to get it right all the time, but if you just keep reflecting on that and you think to yourself, well, that didn't go that well, what would be useful for that person? I think, um, I think that smooths things over and, and help.

Scott Lynch (30:25.962)
Yeah, you actually have to, and that's a tiny little bit of profanity, but I, you know, mute the microphone for a moment or your headphones if you don't want to listen to this or if you're listening with kids present, but I promise it's not too much that one of my favourite authors, Kim Scott, likes to say, just give a shit. You should just give a shit.

Jim (30:46.576)
I thought you were going to say, just give a shit. I don't know the author of this one, but I thought you were going to say, again, block your ears if you got the wrong number. Don't fuck the client, right? Or don't fuck the customer, right? That's like, you know, sometimes, good pair. Yeah, exactly.

Scott Lynch (30:55.79)
Hehehehe

A little bit. Just care about that human being. And it's, I found over time, in particular with complaint management, whether that's a significant complaint about customer service, or it could be, you know, we have people in people's homes. So sometimes we might break something, we might accidentally knock a vase over, like we've had all of these things happen at community therapy. And

And that was something and yeah, it's part of it. These things happen. And I found that over time as my skills improved in those areas of supporting complaint and incident management, supporting when things don't go to planned, I was able to manage my emotions, my resilience, keep my cup full, not burnout, by actually caring more.

Jim (31:28.32)
Well, that's community service in general, right?

Scott Lynch (31:56.534)
So the more I actually cared about that person on the phone, the more I asked open questions through that process to help facilitate us to what that best outcome was for that person. Was it realistic? How are we gonna get there? What's the timeline? Co-design that answer. And sometimes it's very easy, but if it's a significant complaint or incident, that will take time to work through. And that's why policies and procedures will have

a timeline of when you want to close those things by. But I actually found that outcomes as well as my ability to constantly navigate that every week, because it's a significant component of my role, it just improved by just caring more. Sounds it sounds like common sense, but it actually took me a little while to learn that. Yeah. And it's not like I didn't care in the past.

Jim (32:39.628)
Yeah.

Jim (32:44.864)
Yeah, that's exactly it.

Well, common sense ain't that common, right? Ha ha ha!

Scott Lynch (32:55.974)
I definitely did. It's more the way I thought about how I care and the way how I thought about what my role in those processes were and how I'm supporting somebody and how that is demonstrating to that person that I care. I think the way I framed that started to change and I gained confidence in that.

Jim (33:19.68)
What you're talking about there is the difference between a good-hearted person, actively caring versus passively caring. Because decent human beings, naturally, subconsciously go about their days being the best people they can be, passively caring for people. That's just how they're wired, right? But you can take a passive approach to better a situation, particularly a complex situation.

You need to elevate that passive to an active node. And that's what things that you're talking about. It's like critically thinking, reflecting on, okay, what happened there? What led to that? Let's lean into that. Let's look at the process behind that. And even though we're dealing with human beings and it's complex, there's still an element of programmatic thinking or process that can be applied there. And let's take that, the core of it, and let's think about

How do we embed that into an organizational ecosystem that involves our patients, that involves our team members, that involves the risks and compliance measures that we have to work within? What's the process part that we can put in place that elevates the experience?

Scott Lynch (34:36.522)
Yeah, you touch on good points of increasing regulatory burden on the community aged care sector as we see the aged care quality standards being common, as we see the reform pathway continuing to change and there will be increasing compliance on different providers in the support at home program that weren't used to this before.

And then we have a model that fundamentally is financially tight and capped. So the margins will always be thinner than other sectors. Organizations do need to find very good systems and automation so that they can find more time and energy for customer service. That's the way I always look at it. And we look at it at community therapy.

How can we keep building and improving systems and automation so that we have more time to be humans, not so that we find more margins? Like, yes, everyone knows how to, you know, aim for financial sustainability and you need to be doing those things, but that is a result of good business, not by putting that first. And so what are some things that come to mind from your interactions with the sector over?

this half decade and beyond that really move the needle or another way to frame that of what are organizations just missing in terms of easy wins for systemization.

Jim (36:15.632)
Um, yeah, there was a lot in your question, right? I'll, I'll just sort of share some experiences, right? So these are not so much my opinions on what organizations should do or shouldn't do. I'll just share some, some experiences that we've had, uh, maybe the battle scar that I've incurred, somebody else can avoid that, right? So if I sort of think back of the big realizations I've had over the journey of Village Local.

Scott Lynch (36:35.328)
Lovely.

Jim (36:45.556)
biggest earliest ones was this idea that

Let me give it this caveat. When you employ caring people.

those people do caring things. Like it's a great problem, but there's a double edge to that sort, right? Doing caring things can often be inefficient, right? So the realization that I had was of these amazing experiences that we're having for people, what we're creating for people, was there a way to...

Scott Lynch (37:01.206)
Hehehehe

Jim (37:26.892)
You know, we actually started ourselves by scoring that experience. Like let's say, oh, we did, we helped somebody do a three-way call with my aged care, for example, and that person now has successfully, uh, had their RAS assessment and has successfully been able to advocate their way to ACAP. Right. That's a complex process for somebody to do, particularly who doesn't know the system, uh, senior I'm talking about. So we, we managed to achieve that. And the consumer was just like, so grateful for that experience. Right.

Scott Lynch (37:46.121)
Mm-hmm.

Jim (37:55.616)
So we think to ourselves, all right, let's score that. What was that consumer experience? Let's say it was an eight out of 10 experience for that. So then we sort of asked ourselves, well, what would a 10 out of 10 experience look like? And then we sort of said, and by the way, this was not my idea. I got this idea from the CEO of Airbnb. This is the approach that they take to innovation. So what would a 10 out of 10 experience look like? We kind of as a team defined that.

And then we asked ourselves the kicker question, what would a 12 out of 10 experience look like?

Now that we had a benchmark, a new benchmark, then we sort of sat with that and we thought to ourselves, okay, that 12 out of 10 experience, that's what we are aspiring to. But we're not just aspiring to deliver it once. We need to do it sustainably. Can we think of a way that, well, first of all, we need to realize that the way that we delivered that eight out of 10 and hopefully 12 out of 10 experience for a 97-year-old barrel, that was not scalable, right?

So we wanna deliver this 12 out of 10 experience. How do we do that in a scalable way? So now we've really set the cells, the challenge, and that's really the first step, right? Know what you're going for, right? Once we defined that, well, you know, through a lot of trial and error and blood, sweat and tears and battle scars, what's onto the next realization? The next realization was

the process that you deploy to create a 12 out of 10 experience for Beryl, you can tweak that process and still create a 12 out of 10 experience for, you know, good old Tom, but with half the amount of energy, right? Because Tom is, he was at a different stage of his, call it neediness for all intents and purposes, right?

Jim (40:01.948)
And that was the penny drop moment for me. It was like, ah, we are applying the same level of resource across everybody. And that was the big waste. It's like we can still create 12 out of 10 experiences. Some people need high touch to get that 12 out of 10, but other people, they don't need high touch. They just need a poke and they will still get a 12 out of 10 experience.

So really the innovation was for us in the early days, how do we figure out who's who? And once we figured out who's who, that's how we've managed to create what I hope a 12 out of 10 experiences, at least what we strive for, for 25,000 people with 10 people. So that was like our penny drop moment back in the day. And really that's what we've been spending the last, probably,

Four and a half, it took us 18 months to realize that. Four and a half years, just getting better at that, getting better at segmenting. Who's the low touch, who's the high touch? For us, we're a remote organization, right? If we're gonna have a one-on-one interaction with somebody, it's gonna be over the phone. Because our team is all over the country and we're helping seniors all over the country. So for us,

this leveraging technology, leveraging the internet, leveraging networks is a big part of what we do, right? And we always hear this term tech savvy, right? A senior is not tech savvy or this senior is tech savvy. Like it's this binary thing, okay? And I certainly subscribed to that idea back in the day as well. But then I realized it's not binary. It's...

The correct description is how tech savvy is somebody. Where are they on this scale? And that was the kind of like the key design element that we then drew from to help us design our processes. If somebody, for example, their only form of technology is their landline phone and teledex, right? Well, they're at a certain stage of the technology spectrum.

Jim (42:24.512)
But if same 85 year old or a different 85 year old has the iPhone 11, which was handed down from a grandson or granddaughter and they're on Facebook or they're on some sort of social media, well, they're at a different stage. If I can sort of share a little story, my grandfather, late grandfather, he was migrant from Italy. He left school, didn't even...

He was under the age of 10 when he left school. His grandmother dragged him out of school because he was a bit of a cheeky rascal. And sat him in a field, so a little village in Sicily. Sat him in a field to look after sheep. He was a shepherd boy. Never learned to read or write in Italian. And then migrated to Australia in the 50s. A man who could not speak English was illiterate in Italian and therefore obviously never learned how to read or write in English either.

So the man that lived his life, illiterate. And his only form of technology was really the landline phone, right? And television, television as well. So never had internet, never had smartphone, whatever. But in the last year of his life, my cousin gave him a hand-me-down mobile phone, smartphone, and installed Facebook on the phone, right? And...

setting him up with a profile. And then when you go to my grandfather's house, typical sort of hierarchical European house where the godfathers at the end of the table, sort of everyone sort of like, you know, you got the image, right? Prior to his mobile phone, you know, that was the image. But you'd go to him after you got that phone and he'd be at the head, still at the head of the table, but if you're doing these ones.

Scott Lynch (44:09.813)
I have the image.

Jim (44:22.548)
You know what he's doing, right? He's scrolling, he's scrolling. Could the man read? No. Could he write? No. Could he fill out an online form to make an inquiry? Hell no, right? But was he engaging with technology? Yes. And could technology be used to engage with him? Absolutely, yes. How could an organization actually connect with that gentleman? Well, that's...

Scott Lynch (44:23.124)
Scrolling away.

Jim (44:47.936)
That's what an organization needs to think of. And if any organizations are out there thinking, well, that's impossible, like you can't read, think harder, right? Because it is there, we do it. If you've got questions and ask us, happy to share it. But it is possible, right? And that's really what organizations need to challenge themselves on. Understand their client, understand how to best utilize their resources to create 12 out of 10 experiences in a resource.

Scott Lynch (44:54.894)
Hmm.

Jim (45:16.913)
in a resource sustainable way.

Scott Lynch (45:20.49)
Yeah, I think like what I've heard from, I was like just listening to that story and thinking of, you know, how to wrap up a bit of a summary for our chat today. And, you know, I think I'm actually walking away with some nice reflections for myself that I can take across community therapy as well. But I, you know, if we think back to the start of, you know, our talk today, we're saying this is a constantly changing sector that we work in.

we're supporting people, we want to make sure that we're always improving our communication, putting them first. If we get that balance right, it makes everything else easier. It makes the business run better and sustainably. It makes everyone working in the business feel more fulfilled in their role because they're having great interactions with other humans, the older adults that they're supporting.

What's coming to mind front and center for me through this talk is that for a long time, the sectors spoken about consumer directed care. And I've always really liked that from a health care approach being myself as an allied health professional, physiotherapist myself. That's always front and center. And however, I think

organizations can think about their policies and their procedures and their processes of being consumer directed, consumer centered. So like what you're saying there is instead of looking at a process only from the lens of just how do we make this more efficient or simpler or better for us as a team, as staff, your lens is first and foremost coming at it from

How do we make the consumer experience better? That is the number one goal. Everything else will flow from that. That's just such a beautiful way to look at it first and foremost. That's the first lens, get that correct. And then we can aim for efficiency of that process and great staff experience after it. I would argue those components are actually easier once you get the consumer experience box ticked.

Jim (47:34.27)
Is that clear?

Jim (47:42.824)
And just on that, like that is a really thing, like the way you've distilled that is, you know, it's really cool. There's a challenge in that with a lot of the healthcare professionals that I work with. And I think back to my uni days, the ones I studied with, scientists in general, we're trained to be accurate and precise.

in planning and in execution.

The harsh reality is to create good stuff, you gotta break stuff and it's messy. Innovation is messy, right? So we're obviously dealing with a very vulnerable sector of the community, those who need healthcare, those who are struggling with staying well. You add another layer on it to it as well, when it comes to frailty.

And we're dealing with a very vulnerable sector of society. So how do you balance these two things? How do you break stuff to innovate in this messy world, but also do it in a compliant way, in a safe way, and still provides good outcomes while you're going through the innovation curve? The answer to that is it's hard, it's hard. But really, if you can understand who your clients are, you can be able to segment them, you can risk stratify them.

Well, then you can apply different methodologies to certain people while you innovate. And then you go, all right, that innovation risk that we deployed was a good risk for that client because risk is relative to a situation, right? So everything we do is risk, right? It's all about risk mitigation. Now that we've pulled it off and it is safe and the risk tolerance is now changed, it's now applicable to the next risk code.

Jim (49:45.8)
and you just kind of work your way up, right? That's how we've applied the methodology, our methodology of processes of community navigation, aged care navigation and advocacy. And we're just looking at, all right, those who have had good outcomes, how do we then make that process more applicable to a wider audience in a more financially sustainable way? And that's been our mindset.

Scott Lynch (50:15.474)
Yeah, I love it. I've really enjoyed our chat today. I hope people listening walk away with what I would call fresh energy to look at the consumer experience front and center for all business processes and procedures and policies and branding and social media. Think about who you're supporting, who your ideal customer is or range of customer cohorts and all of these.

you know, different terminologies we talk about, but who are the humans that you are best looking after and how do you speak and communicate your message through to them. But hopefully it brings you fresh energy for that. We'll put some things in the show notes of how to find your information across village, local and care path, but what's the best way for people to find? Is that on, do you want them to head to socials, website?

Jim (51:13.132)
Yeah, look, just go to the website, villagelocal.com.au, or if you want to check out the community page, which is always fun to see, right, to see 80 year olds and 90 year olds typing away, asking questions, having a good old rant. You can go to community.villagelocal.com.au. But I want to sort of end in my part, but just by saying this, when I started Village Local, the age of 34, I was at a stage of my career where, you know,

I was very, very fortunate to be paid well and to take a lot of those financial goals I had in life. And it was serendipitous. I was actually looking for, what is the next chapter of my journey look like? And I was just really passionate about, asking myself the question, how, what do I wanna get involved with that will literally move the needle in the healthcare experience in this country? And-

I put the message out there and the universe replied, and the universe put Lillian in front of me, and I just grabbed onto it. But the intent has still stayed the same. It's never died for me. And it's like, I'll rip it off the walls.

Yeah.

This is what I look at every single day.

Scott Lynch (52:34.494)
Oh, that's amazing.

Jim (52:36.192)
How will Village Local positively impact the lives of 1 million seniors living with chronic disease? That's what I look at every day. My doors over there, I look at this every day. And I share that because the battle scars and the lessons and the learnings that Village Local has acquired over the years, I consider it open source. I wanna share anything, anything that is useful to somebody, an organization that's doing amazing work in the community that might be stuck with...

how to connect with that person who's sitting in their home right now, suffering in silence. As an organizer, you know that person exists, you just can't get to them. Hit me up, I'll show you, I'll lift the lid on exactly what we do. Whether we work together, whether you copy us, whether you've got the right, like don't, I'm not a hoarder of information. It's there, it's been invested in by other good organizations to create, and it belongs to everyone. So I just wanna share it.

Scott Lynch (53:34.766)
Thank you for everything that you do. I know your resources are gonna be invaluable to the community as everyone navigates support at home. From 1 July 25 for home care and STRC and from the earliest, for those of you listening, of 1 July 20, 1 July 2027 for CHSP. But thank you so much. You're a great human. I always love having a chat to you. And...

Jim (53:54.203)
I'm gonna go to the toilet.

Scott Lynch (54:04.462)
For those of you listening, thanks so much for listening to the Community Therapy Podcast. Check out the show notes for links and we will catch you in the next episode. Thanks everyone, see ya.

Jim (54:15.092)
Thanks guys, thanks for the invite.