Switching care software isn’t always as daunting as it seems.
About Ali’s Home Healthcare
For 26 years, Ali’s Home Healthcare has been a fixture of community care across Canterbury, New Zealand. Its origins are humble: the business was founded by a support worker who, frustrated by the standard of care she saw being delivered in the community, decided to do things differently and started her own service from her garage.
What began as a one-person operation grew steadily over the years, and eight years ago, Kelly Seed took over the business.
Kelly’s path into the sector isn’t the typical one. Her background is in construction, project management and quantity surveying rather than clinical care and it’s that operational, process-driven mindset she’s brought to running Ali’s Home Healthcare. Today, the business supports hundreds of clients across aged care, disability support and supported living, backed by a large team of support workers and care staff delivering hands-on care in the community every day.
The challenge
After struggling with their existing software for some time, Ali’s Home Healthcare reached a turning point. Despite repeated efforts to resolve ongoing issues, the challenges persisted, and Kelly made the decision to start exploring alternatives. A conversation with her regional manager led her to CareLineLive (known as Evaran Home Care in Australia and New Zealand), and following a 45-minute initial demo and a more in-depth session with the team members who would be involved in the transition, the decision to switch felt like an easy one.
“I was really, really, really impressed and could see how our business could function exceptionally well through Evaran.”
The migration
Ali’s Home Healthcare went live with CareLineLive on 1st June, just two months before this interview took place. Rather than migrating years of historical data that had built up in ways specific to their old system, the team opted for a cleaner start: uploading their current client base and setting each client up individually. In the run-up to go-live, the two systems ran in parallel for a week, giving the team a chance to check everything matched, while staff worked through two weeks of training. Kelly describes the switch as smooth from start to finish.
“Everything went exceptionally smoothly. It was so easy.”
With hindsight, Kelly says she would have made more use of custom fields and brought across more historical data had she understood the system’s full capabilities from the outset, a lesson she’s now applying as the business continues to refine its setup.
Life with CareLineLive
Two months in, Kelly points to several areas where CareLineLive has already changed the way her team works.
Scheduling that sticks
Where the previous system required repeated, clunky adjustments, changes in CareLineLive are permanent once made.
“Creating client appointments and assigning a support worker is seamless. We have confidence that staff are able to meet their guaranteed hours, clients’ needs are being met, and service satisfaction is growing.”
The team is now preparing to divide Christchurch into zones so coordinators can see staff availability and location more clearly, supporting better planning around leave and new client intake. Better visibility of where appointments are happening geographically is also expected to bring further efficiencies.
Bulk rostering
Around 80% of Ali’s Home Healthcare’s clients have email addresses and emailing rosters out in bulk has cut a job that used to consume a Friday afternoon and a Saturday for 150 to 200 clients down to around 30 minutes! It’s now handled by the receptionist rather than a coordinator.
Medication management
Kelly highlighted the visibility CareLineLive gives into medication administration, including accurate timestamps, as a standout feature. The team is working through a broader culture shift, encouraging support workers to use the Carer Companion App actively throughout each visit rather than just for checking in and out.
Compliance and forms
Ali’s Home Healthcare isn’t due to be audited for another 18 months, but Kelly is confident CareLineLive gives her the reporting and documentation she’ll need, including the Forms feature, which lets her create live, updatable documents that can be saved as PDFs and shared with both the client and their wider care circle whenever a client’s needs change.
Care Circle Portal
Having only started inviting clients to the Care Circle Portal in the past two weeks, Ali’s is already seeing uptake of around 60%. Kelly expects this to be especially valuable for family members living overseas who want visibility into appointments, updates and photos.
Reporting
Kelly is looking forward to the enhanced reporting capability coming to CareLineLive, and is excited about what more in-depth reporting will mean for tracking performance as the business grows. Particularly as it takes on more clients and support workers across a wider area.
Support and training
Kelly praised the CareLineLive implementation and support team, singling out the depth of the help content and training videos, which have often let her team find answers themselves. She’s also looking forward to the upcoming CareLineLive Academy, a combined library of videos and guides currently in its final stages of testing.
The overall impact
Together, these changes have shifted CareLineLive from being a replacement system to becoming part of Ali’s Home Healthcare’s operating model. The early benefits are practical: less time spent on repetitive administration, better visibility for coordinators, and stronger tools for communicating with clients, families and staff.
“It is saving us hours and hours each week, with the ease of filling staff leave, actioning client changes and invoicing and preparation for payroll. The ability to use the capability function, to search for support staff for new clients is easing pressure on our coordinating team. Being part of a large software provider network has meant that updates and improvements are regular and have been well tested before landing in our environment.”
Looking ahead, Ali’s Home Healthcare is exploring MOA to further strengthen its compliance and quality reporting, alongside plans to trial CareLineLive’s group functionality to better support its supported living homes.
See what CareLineLive and MOA could do for your service. Book a free, personalised demo and find out how your team could save hours on admin, strengthen compliance and give your clients and their families better visibility, just like Ali’s Home Healthcare.
