Social care organizations have their work cut out for them, and that’s before you consider the administrative challenges that come with the tasks at hand. Any social care administrator will be dealing with complex caseloads, trying to manage care across different providers, and keeping up with reporting standards and privacy. As such, the right software will determine how possible all that is.
At a minimum, such programs need to handle client intake to outcome tracking, and the best ones understand that social care work isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. Your closest partner may have a need for entirely different systems to you, and you have to make do with it.
The market has plenty of options, but not all social care software is built the same way. Some focus purely on case management, yet you’ll find other options are more focused on referrals, community outreach, and grant management all in one place. It’s important to find the right fit for your own quirks as a service.
That’s why in this post, we’re going to compare five platforms that have proven themselves in the social care space, each bringing something different to the table. Let’s begin:
Best Overall: Community CareLink
Community CareLink stands out for its wide-ranging and thorough approach to community care coordination. The platform is loud about helping community-based organizations, health systems, payers, and government agencies work together to deliver accountable care, which is exactly what most organizations need in today’s care environment.
What makes Community CareLink different, and why it tops our list, is how it handles the messy reality of social care work. Unlike more rigid platforms, they don’t require every provider to be on the same system. This means the suite flexes to how communities in many different fields operate, which means there’s more chance of collaboration even across different care networks. This provision is huge for organizations that work with multiple partners who might be using different systems on any given day, and vastly cuts down on your planning.
Specifically, this helps with tasks like case management and closed loop referrals, but it also includes community information sharing and grant reporting. This means users often report that their note-taking has improved, with better and clearer intakes, not to mention follow-up becoming easier with the calendar reminders. This ease of use and adaptability means it can theoretically bind every other provision on this list, which means it wins our top recommendation spot.
Best For Healthcare Integration: WellSky Social Care Coordination
WellSky takes another approach in focusing specifically on how between healthcare and social care blend together, because WellSky Social Care Coordination will help payers to identify social needs in a member population and let that define its care care, making it a good fit for health systems and managed care organizations.
This platform really works when you need to connect medical care with social services, as many do. Through that it also helps bring up social influences of health in patient populations and allows case workers to manage those needs through better care plans. The integration is solid, and it handles the complex tasks that come with managing both sets of intensive and ever-changing data.
WellSky has also been around long enough to understand healthcare compliance requirements, which can be a real pain for organizations trying to manage both of these fields.
Best For Nonprofits: Bonterra Apricot
Bonterra Apricot has made its name working with nonprofits, developing a management solution that works for nonprofits of any size. They get that nonprofit organizations have weird reporting needs and can sometimes begin trying to figure themselves out, usually without huge IT budgets to work with.
The software affords all the usual case management practice, but what it nails is the reporting and outcomes tracking segment of the work. Nonprofits need to show their impact to different funders all the time, and each funder wants their reports done differently, so Apricot makes this whole approach much more doable.
Users also report how easy it is to learn and use, which matters when you’ve got high staff turnover or not much money for training. The pricing works for nonprofits too, with different options based on how big you are and what you need.
Best For Audit Management: GoAudits Social Care Management
GoAudits does something different by laser-focusing on the audit and compliance elements that social care organizations deal with. They boast that you can do audits and inspections up to 5 times faster on any device, online or offline, with their mobile app, and you get professional reports right after each audit without having to write anything up manually.
This works well if you’re dealing with continual inspections or need to do internal quality checks on a repeated monthly basis. The mobile benefit means auditors can finish everything on site without going back to the office to write reports too, which saves time and makes all that detail tracking more accurate.
The instant reports are also great for supervisors who need to document compliance problems fast and get findings to staff or regulatory reviewers. It might not do everything the bigger platforms do, but it’s really good at what it focuses on.
Best For Community Care Providers: Civica CarelinkPlus
Civica CarelinkPlus is built for community care providers, especially those working in disability and aged care services. The platform connects with third-party finance and payroll systems so you get a complete case management system from start to finish.
The rostering element is known to be excellent, because through this platform, you can set up recurring appointments, match clients with the right care workers, handle fully funded services, and of course implement rosters for individuals and groups. It lets you use filters to sort this out cleanly, which greatly matters when you’re providing direct care services for multiple different households and clients..
Compliance management comes built in, which you need when working with government-funded programs. Carelink Suite handles different compliance areas in community care, including National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), Home Care Packages (HCP), and other Department of Social Services funded programs.
With this advice, we hope you can find the best software suite needed.
