Australian Board Portal for Health & Aged Care Providers
Your board oversees clinical governance, accreditation, and compliance alongside the usual strategic and financial responsibilities. That means more papers, more committee meetings, and more actions to track than most NFPs. Our Cat Herder brings all of that into one portal so your staff spend less time on board admin and more time on the work that matters to your clients.
Board packs that hold up to accreditation scrutiny
Aged care and health providers face compliance reviews where auditors expect to see well-organised governance records. Minutes are often the first thing they ask for, followed by the board pack. Build yours in the portal with every paper attached to the right agenda item, and produce a consolidated PDF with one click.
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Papers linked to agenda items
Clinical governance reports, financial statements, and quality indicator dashboards sit under the agenda item they belong to. Auditors and board members find what they need without digging through email threads.
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See who is engaging with the papers
Board members can leave comments directly on papers in the pack. If you see questions and notes coming in before the meeting, you know people are reading. If it is quiet, you know the conversation might need a slower start.
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One-click consolidated PDF
One click produces a single PDF with every paper in agenda order and a clickable table of contents. Hand it to an auditor or accreditation assessor and they can navigate straight to the governance item they are reviewing.
Follow through on clinical governance and compliance actions
When the board directs management to update a clinical governance policy or respond to an accreditation finding, that action needs to be tracked until it is done. The portal records every action with an owner and a due date. Nothing falls through the cracks between meetings.
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Your open actions, front and centre
Log in and your dashboard shows every action assigned to you: update the infection control policy, provide a progress report on accreditation recommendations, follow up on incident reporting. Each one shows the due date and which meeting it came from.
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Outstanding actions carry forward
If an action from two meetings ago is still open, it rolls onto the next agenda under Matters Arising. An incomplete response to an Aged Care Quality Standards finding stays visible until someone closes it. Assessors notice that kind of audit trail.
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Status updates between meetings
Update the status of an action and add a note when there is a delay. The chair and other board members can see progress without sending emails asking where things are at.
Policies, accreditation docs, and strategic plans in one place
Between clinical governance frameworks, quality improvement plans, risk registers, accreditation self-assessments, and strategic plans, health and aged care providers end up with a lot of governance documents. The portal puts them all in one searchable place so board members can find what they need without asking staff to dig it out.
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Organised by category
Group documents into folders: clinical governance, finance, HR policies, accreditation, strategic planning. Board members browse to the section they need instead of scrolling through a flat list of files.
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Minutes locked after sign-off
Once the chair confirms the minutes, they are locked and timestamped. If an ACNC reviewer or Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner asks how a decision was made, you point them to the exact minute. Nobody can quietly revise what was agreed.
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New directors onboard themselves
When a new board member joins, give them portal access and they can read past minutes, the strategic plan, governance policies, and accreditation history at their own pace. No need to compile a handover folder.
Meeting preparation for governance, clinical, and finance committees
Health and aged care boards often run multiple committees: clinical governance, finance, risk, and quality. Each one needs its own agenda, papers, and minutes. The portal handles the structure so staff can focus on the content instead of the formatting and distribution.
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Agenda templates for each committee
Set up a template with standing items for each committee: clinical incident reports for the clinical governance committee, budget variance for finance, risk register updates for the risk committee. Reuse the template for every meeting and add what is new.
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Board pack notifications
When you publish the board pack, every member of that committee gets a link straight to the portal. No attachments to download, no version confusion. They read it online, and you can see who has opened it before the meeting.
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Separate committees, one portal
The main board and all its committees run from the same portal with separate meetings and access controls. A director who sits on both the clinical governance committee and the main board uses one login. Staff who support multiple committees manage everything from one place.
“Arthritis SA has found Our Cat Herder to be an excellent tool for our board and CEO. In particular having access to documents that may be required has saved a great deal of administration time. Board meetings and distribution of papers is now streamlined and effective. It has made my life just so much easier as a CEO”
Everything else your board needs from the portal
Voting, discussions, and security
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- Circular resolutions between meetings
- Need board approval on a contract or policy change before the next meeting? Send a circular resolution through the portal. Directors vote with one click, and the result is recorded with timestamps.
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- Discussion threads between meetings
- Flag an issue between meetings, or let board members ask questions about a clinical governance report before the meeting. Discussion threads keep conversations visible to the right people and searchable later.
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- Private notes on board papers
- Jot down talking points while reviewing the clinical governance report, or note a question about the quality indicators. Your notes are private, saved against the paper, and still there when you open it again.
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- Works on phones and tablets
- Review the board pack on a tablet before the meeting, or check your actions from your phone. It works in any modern browser with no app to install.
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- Security and Australian data hosting
- Board papers contain sensitive patient governance information. All data is hosted on AWS in Sydney, penetration tested annually. Your organisation owns its data and can export it at any time.
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- Conflict of interest declarations
- Health and aged care boards deal with procurement, government contracts, and clinical partnerships. Conflict of interest tracking is built in, so declarations are recorded and visible at every meeting where they apply.
Action register
Minutes sign-off
Discussion groups
Australian-built for Australian boards
Why health and aged care providers choose Our Cat Herder
- Australian data sovereignty. All data is hosted on AWS in Sydney. If your government contract or funding agreement says data stays in Australia, that is not negotiable. With some overseas vendors, your data can end up offshore without anyone telling you.
- No per-user fees. Health and aged care boards bring in clinical advisors, committee members, and community representatives. You should not pay more because you added two people to the clinical governance committee. Unlimited users, unlimited meetings.
- Built for Australian governance frameworks. The minutes sign-off workflow, decision audit trails, and conflict of interest register are built around the Corporations Act, ACNC Governance Standards, and what the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission expects to see.
- Affordable for not-for-profit budgets. Alternative board portals with similar functionality are seven to ten times more expensive. For organisations funded by government grants and community fundraising, that difference matters.
- 45-day free trial, no credit card. Set up a portal in under five minutes and try it with your actual board. Full access to every feature during the trial.
Spend less time on board admin. Start your free 45-day trial.
Full access to all features. No credit card required. Set up in under 5 minutes.
Frequently asked questions
- How does a board portal help health and aged care providers with compliance?
- It keeps your governance records organised and accessible. Board packs, minutes, action registers, and governance policies are all stored in one place with timestamps and audit trails. When an accreditation assessor or the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission asks how a decision was made, you can pull up the exact minute and the papers that supported it. That is much faster than searching through email archives.
- Can we use it for clinical governance committees as well as the main board?
- Yes. The portal supports multiple committees with separate meetings, agendas, and access controls. Your clinical governance committee, finance committee, risk committee, and main board all run from the same portal. Members who sit on more than one committee use a single login.
- Is the data hosted in Australia?
- All data is hosted on AWS in Sydney. If your government contract or funding agreement says data stays in Australia, that is non-negotiable. Our Cat Herder is 100% Australian owned and operated, and we do not use customer data for AI training. Your organisation owns its data and can export it at any time.
- We are a small aged care provider with limited IT resources. Is this hard to set up?
- No. You can set up a portal in under five minutes. It runs in a web browser with no software to install. Most of our customers are not-for-profit organisations where staff wear multiple hats. The interface is straightforward enough that non-technical staff pick it up without training. We also provide free onboarding support if you want it.
- How does pricing work for not-for-profit health providers?
- There are no per-user fees. You pay a flat rate regardless of how many board members, committee members, or staff use the portal. A price comparison by The Association Specialists found that alternative board portals with similar functionality were seven to ten times more expensive, which made them hard for NFP boards to justify.
- Does the portal help with Aged Care Quality Standards?
- The portal helps with the governance side of the Aged Care Quality Standards. Board decisions have auditable records, compliance actions are tracked until they are closed, and governance documents live in one accessible place. It does not replace your quality management system, but it gives your board and management team a clear record of how governance obligations are being met.
Resources for health and aged care boards
Guides and templates to help you strengthen your organisation's governance.
Guide
Effective Board Packs: The Complete Guide
What should be in a board pack, how to structure it, and how to make sure members actually read it before the meeting.
Guide
Managing Conflicts of Interest in Non-Profits
How to identify, declare, and manage conflicts of interest on your board. Covers actual, potential, and perceived conflicts.
Template
Free Consent Agenda Template
Bundle routine items into one motion so the board can spend its time on the decisions that actually need discussion.
Template
Free Action Register Template
Track every action item from every meeting with columns for assignee, due date, status, and notes. Word format.