How to switch aged care policy management systems before your contract renews

Start from your contract's notice deadline and work backwards. Export every policy with its version history and staff acknowledgement records, remap each policy to the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards, and run the new system alongside the old one until you've checked it and staff have re-acknowledged what they need to. Copying the documents across is the smaller job. The standards mapping and the acknowledgement history take longer, so start those first.

Below is the plan, step by step.

When should we start planning the switch?

1. Find the renewal date and the notice period

Read the contract before anything else. Look for:

• the renewal date, and whether it renews automatically
• the notice period, and how notice has to be given (email, letter, to which person)
• what happens to your data when the contract ends: your right to export it, when it gets deleted, and any exit fees

The notice deadline is your real deadline, and it comes before the renewal date. Put it in the calendar today. Every step below has to fit before it, or at least before the contract ends.

What should we list before migrating our policies?

2. Inventory every policy and procedure

Build one list of everything in the current system. For each policy, record:

• title, owner and current version
• last review date and next review date
• which staff groups have to read and acknowledge it
• which Quality Standards outcomes it's mapped to

Mark each one as active, draft or retired. Flag duplicates and anything overdue for review.

This is where you find out what you're really moving. It also lines up with what the Commission expects anyway. Outcome 2.3, Action 2.3.7 says the provider "maintains and implements policies and procedures that are current, regularly reviewed, informed by contemporary, evidence-based practice, and are understood and accessible by aged care workers and relevant parties" (Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, Outcome 2.3). A policy past its review date is a problem whichever system it sits in.

Do our policies need remapping to the strengthened Quality Standards?

3. Check the standards mapping

The previous Quality Standards had 8 standards and were in effect from 1 July 2019 to 31 October 2025 (Commission, Previous Aged Care Quality Standards). The strengthened Quality Standards are part of the Aged Care Act 2024, applied from 1 November 2025, and have 7 standards (Commission, Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards).

If your current system still tags policies against the old 8 standards, that mapping won't carry over cleanly. Each active policy needs mapping to the strengthened outcomes, for example a medication policy against Standard 5 (Clinical care). Do this before you migrate, so the new system starts with the right mapping and you can see which outcomes have no policy behind them.

The Commission audits providers registered in categories 4, 5 or 6 against the strengthened Quality Standards when they register, renew their registration or vary it to add those categories (Commission). A clean mapping makes those audits easier to prepare for.

What should we export from our current system?

4. Test the export early

Ask your current provider what you can export, and ask for a test export of a handful of policies before you give notice. Check whether you get:

• the documents in an editable format (Word), as well as PDF
• version history, including retired versions
• acknowledgement records: who signed, which version, and when
• review dates, owners and standards tags

If something can't be exported, pull reports or save copies while you still have access. Keep the old acknowledgement history after you switch, so you can show what staff had signed before the move.

Do staff need to re-acknowledge policies after switching?

5. Plan staff re-acknowledgement

If the new system can import your acknowledgement history, staff only need to re-sign policies that changed during the move. If it can't, every acknowledgement starts again from zero, and that's the biggest piece of work in the whole switch.

Either way, decide the order before cut-over:

• policies that changed, or that were overdue for review, go first
• higher-risk areas next, for example medication and incident management
• everything else in your normal review cycle

Plan around rosters. Night staff, part-timers and agency staff are the ones who fall behind.

Should we run both systems at once?

6. Run both systems in parallel

Keep the old system live, and read-only if you can, while you check the new one. Before you trust it, confirm:

• every active policy is there, at the right version
• each policy is mapped to the right outcomes
• the right staff groups are assigned to each policy
• acknowledgement counts match what you exported

Find every place that links to the old system: intranet pages, posters, QR codes, induction packs. Each one needs updating at cut-over.

7. Cut over before the renewal date

Pick a cut-over date that leaves room before the contract ends. On the day:

1. stop edits in the old system
2. take a final export and store it somewhere you control
3. switch the links and tell staff where policies now live
4. confirm in writing what the old provider will do with your data, and when

If you know when your next registration renewal audit is, avoid cutting over in the same weeks.

How hard is migrating the policies?

It depends on three things:

• How much is in there. A list of current, reviewed policies moves quickly. Years of duplicates and drafts slow everything down.
• What the export includes. Documents alone are easy to move. Version history and acknowledgement records decide how much work staff have to redo.
• Whether the mapping is current. Policies already mapped to the strengthened Standards carry across. Policies mapped to the old 8 standards need remapping first.

If you're looking at OriComply, we migrate your full policy suite before go-live, and it runs in parallel with your current system until you've signed off.