Kiandra IT rips out WA Health's legacy invoicing system

Melbourne-headquartered Kiandra IT has developed a low-code invoicing system for Western Australia’s Health Support Services (HSS).

The solution is a newly-reconstructed version of the Medicare-hosted Medical Accounts Assessment System (MAAS), which was developed in 1998 and decommissioned on 30 June 2019. The legacy system was used to assess, process and verify invoices for Contracted Medical Practitioners (CMPs) who provide fee-for-services in WA public hospitals.

Kiandra used low-code technology from specialist vendor OutSystems, which specialises in enterprise-scale solutions.

Kiandra co-founder Martin Cooperwaite said it chose a low-code platform to meet the “significant” requirements of the project in a short time frame.

“A system of this scale, in this time frame, would have been very difficult to deliver in time without the use of low-code,” Cooperwaite said.

“We were able to utilise our partnership with OutSystems and implement a solution in much less time than traditional approaches.”

Kiandra, alongside HSS, was able to develop, test and launch the new system within five months, compared to previous estimates of at least 12 months to complete using traditional software development tools.

HSS chief information officer Holger Kaufmann said the new MAAS will help WA public hospitals and health services better manage invoices and payments of medical services provided by CMPs in the state’s health system.

“This streamlines the processing of up to $100 million worth of CMP invoices each year under one managed system, making it easier and more efficient for our customers,” Kaufmann said.

“Low-code technology has enabled us to respond quickly to the required change and puts HSS at the forefront of application innovation and in a position to continue improving and building on the services we offer to the WA public health system.”