How a 165-year-old not-for-profit provider of health and aged care services brought its operations into the digital age

The company

The story begins with five Sisters of Charity who made the long voyage from Ireland to Australia, establishing their mission in New South Wales under the guidance of Mary Aikenhead to open the first hospital in Sydney in 1857.

Today, as the aged care division of St Vincent's Health Australia, St Vincent's Care Services carries forward a proud legacy of compassionate care spanning more than 165 years.

The organization now delivers both residential aged care, home care services, and social initiatives ensuring every person receives the care they deserve.

The challenges

Behind the delivery of care at St Vincent's, there are a wide range of operational processes that keep each site running. One such responsibility falls to the supply team, which manages purchasing, vendor coordination, and fleet management across 24 sites.

Previously, the team relied on Microsoft Outlook for communication, which made it quite difficult to keep track of emails across the team. Fleet management was handled entirely through an Excel spreadsheet that tracked over 100 vehicles, including both current and disposed vehicles, along with due dates for bus inspections.

Purchasing was managed the same way. When items changed or were discontinued, new items came in and old ones went out, but the spreadsheet had no way of reflecting those changes in real time, leaving the rest of the team working off outdated information.

With so many moving parts to manage across 24 sites, things could easily be missed. Since Excel could not send alerts or reminders, these challenges began to affect how efficiently the team could work. That was when the team realised it was time to move to a solution that could better support their needs.

The solution

The team went on to build three applications on Zoho Creator that fit their exact operational needs, each addressing a key part of their operations.

1. Fleet management app

The first was a fleet management app, centred around a dashboard that brought everything together at a glance. The dashboard displayed a summary of active vehicles, upcoming registrations expiring within the next 30 days, and expired licences; something that had previously been a real challenge to stay on top of. The team also incorporated a list of drivers directly into the app giving them a complete picture in one place.

2. Purchasing app

This app manages all purchasing operations, allowing teams across different sites to log in, view listed items, and place orders with the system, detecting the requesting site automatically. Submitted requests go straight into Zoho Desk, routing requests to the purchasing team. Any edits are updated in real time so teams never need to resend or follow up manually.

3. CapEx capital purchasing

The third app is around their CapEx capital purchasing. This helped them get more visibility into all the requests coming through. Facility and state managers now get visibility into the building works being ordered by sites. The app also helps the CFO see what’s coming through so they can approve different requests easily. This gave the team a clearer view of capital spending across sites and made it easier to review and approve requests as they came in.

Benefits and ROI

Since adopting Zoho Creator, the team has seen several operational improvements. Some of the key benefits include:

• Cost-effectiveness - Features that were available in other tools costed four to five times more compared to Zoho Creator, with far less setup and complexity.
• Strong data privacy and security - Data protection, a top priority for St Vincent's Care Services, was met with confidence through Zoho Creator’s security standards, especially when handling sensitive customer data.
• Easy to use - They found Zoho Creator simple and user-friendly, making it accessible even for users with little to no technical expertise.

Looking ahead

With three apps live and delivering results, St Vincent's Care Services is only getting started. The team has seen first hand how fast a need can be identified and turned into a working solution, and that mindset is spreading across the organisation. Other teams have begun exploring what they could build for their own workflows.