Asthma Australia is a national nonprofit organisation whose purpose is to help people breathe better so they can live freely. Asthma is a respiratory condition that affects nearly 2.8 million Australians, with children being the most impacted. Asthma is responsible for at least one Australian death every day, making it a serious health concern. In 2022-23, over 31,000 people were hospitalised due to asthma, yet more than 90% of these hospitalisations were potentially preventable. Despite the prevalence of asthma, it is often misunderstood, causing fear and anxiety for those living with the condition.

However, there is hope. Asthma Australia has been the leading charity for people with asthma and their communities for over 60 years. The challenges of climate change, unhealthy air and health inequity make it more important than ever for people with asthma to have a voice. We search for new and progressive approaches to challenge the status quo. Our work is grounded in evidence and centred on the experiences of people affected by asthma. We believe by listening to those living with asthma, designing solutions with them and influencing change, people with asthma can live freely, unrestricted by their asthma.

Asthma Australia works directly with people living with asthma and their caregivers, as well as education and healthcare professionals, to deliver person-centered support to keep people living well where they live, learn, work and play. They also work tirelessly to advocate for policy and systems changes to improve outcomes for people with asthma and their carers.

Asthma Australia places the voice of people with asthma at the centre of their work, and combines it with data and evidence to make informed decisions. They engage with over 650,000 people each year across a range of channels. Their data shows that 37% of people who have completed more than one Asthma Control Questionnaire online or over the phone improved their control or remained well controlled. Perhaps most impressive of all, is their work is co-designed with the people they serve, allowing for solutions that will likely have a greater impact.

“Personally, I’m really motivated to work at Asthma Australia because it has real impact. If people have the right access and information, they can completely change the way they live.”

– Kathy Packenas, Director – Customer and Marketing, Asthma Australia

Unification Through Digital Transformation

Asthma Australia and its’ former Asthma Foundations have long been a data-centric organisation, but the way they interacted with data changed drastically in 2017 when six state and territory-level organisations merged to form Asthma Australia as we know it today. This resulted in the need for Asthma Australia rationalise and streamline its data and technology infrastructure to truly unify their goals and operations. The transformation journey began with a massive new brand effort spearheaded by Kathy Packenas, Director – Customer and Marketing at Asthma Australia. With direct input from Asthma Australia customers, she and her team retooled the look, language and overarching purpose of Asthma Australia to reflect the needs and desires of people living with asthma.

To further embed their focus on person-centric approaches, as Asthma Australia implemented a customer experience framework, requiring a single view of the customer to enable personalised engagement and journeys. At this time, a data audit revealed they were working with over 30 data repositories with five being most used. This was sometimes challenging as different CRMs served different functions, often resulting in the need for manual reconciliation of customer records across each CRM. They were able to whittle the number of data repositories down to four after some consolidation, but any further effort necessitated more specific IT and data skills. A digital transformation program was then instigated to consolidate data enabling improved customer journeys, a single view of customer and improved customer experience. It resulted in a major service redesign and integration of all major customer and marketing technologies.

It was at this point that Asthma Australia brought on Nick Gillan in the role of Technology and Data Governance Manager to help them go further with data platforms and the more technical parts of the larger digital transformation initiative. Kathy and team had done a wonderful job of creating a new digital front end, and Nick’s focus would be on shoring up the technologic foundation to support that.

“We had a lot of data sitting in disparate locations, so finding an accurate and validated single source of truth was a challenge prior to the work with InterWorks.”

– Nick Gillan, Technology and Data Governance Manager, Asthma Australia

Just prior to Nick’s arrival, Asthma Australia had built a technology stack defined use cases in the customer area and included Active Campaign as a configurable CRM, WordPress, Gravity Forms, Shopify, Thinkific and Funraisin and Power BI for visual analytics. Acquiring all those tools was great progress but getting them all to work together seamlessly was a bit more challenging. As a starting point, Nick suggested spending some time focusing on the enterprise-level data foundation to get stakeholders across the organisation on the same page. To aid in this process, he reached out to InterWorks Australia to come conduct a Strategy, Vision and Roadmapping (SVR) session.

Furthering the Data Conversation

SVRs are highly customisable, resulting in a series of technical recommendations and options that customers can then act on. SVRs can also include special workshops or other unique consulting applications based on client need. Nick and Kathy worked directly with InterWorks Managing Director, APAC, Robert Curtis and Account Executive Angela Kang to conduct just such a workshop. This manifested in a “Data FUNdamentals Day” that brought together stakeholders and data users from across the organisation for a day of active learning and collaboration. In fact, nearly 50% of the organisation’s staff were present.

By getting everyone in the same room and talking about data, Asthma Australia was able to better align departmental goals with broader organisational goals, explore different data use cases and identify potential inefficiencies or opportunities across the organisation. Perhaps most useful of all is that the day provided an opportunity for people to engage with others who have a vested interest in using data more effectively, establishing more common ground and interest in growing a more data-driven culture.

“I really enjoyed the way Rob was able to communicate complex topics in a simple way. The output of the SVR was easy to understand, and the process was inclusive.”

– Kathy Packenas, Director – Customer and Marketing, Asthma Australia

Moving Forward with a Clearer Direction

Asthma Australia’s attention now turns to reinforcing their findings from the Data FUNdamentals Day they held and then executing the recommendations from their larger SVR. Part of this includes exploring the acquisition of a true data platform to underpin the rest of their technology stack. Such a platform would not only serve as a single source of truth, but it would also save considerable time and effort when it comes to data engineering and transformation processes.

It’s still early days for Asthma Australia, but they’ve already made considerable progress getting everyone on the same page in terms of data foundation and fundamentals. The work they’ve done thus far to improve how they interact with their data has already made it easier to find relevant insights. Those insights in turn help them to serve out their mission of improving better health outcomes in their customers. The act of strengthening that foundation and becoming even more data-driven means more lives improved and even saved, as well as a healthier Australia for years to come. This is perhaps best captured in a response that Kathy gave her colleague Nick as to what data means to them:

“Data is an essential element of our business. In fact, it’s an organisational principle. It tells us who our customers are, who they should be, if they’re having a good experience when they engage with us, and it shows us where things go wrong and where we can improve. It tells us if our work is actually having an impact on people with asthma.”

– Kathy Packenas, Director – Customer and Marketing, Asthma Australia