30 October 2023

Making sure that our geat2GO clients receive the right assistive technology for them is an important job, and one that Simone is very passionate about!

Simone is the Allied Health Lead for Assistive Technology as part of the Clinical Excellence team here at Indigo, which means that she wears many hats; she has a background in occupational therapy, manages a team of OT's, and helps older people across the country access assistive technology through the geat2GO program - so she is very passionate about occupational therapy and assistive technology.

She has been with Indigo for 8 years, and has a key role in ensuring that the AT that we provide is suitable, safe, and effective. 

What does your role involve?

My role includes supporting a wonderful team of occupational therapists to provide information, advice, and the prescription of AT via telephone or video consults. We also conduct clinical reviews of geat2GO equipment requests, to make sure that complex equipment is going to be effective and safe, and that the client, their environment, and their occupations, goals, and tasks, have been taken into consideration. 

Another aspect is our product reviews and curations, which is pretty much where we can play with assistive technology to make sure we understand how it all works, and then write descriptions in a way that is easy to understand. We're big on assistive technology!

What do you like most about your role and working at Indigo?

The best thing about Indigo is the people. Not just my team of occupational therapists (who are stupendous), but also the wider teams of allied health, customer services, and corporate services. I love that we have such an eclectic bunch of people working at Indigo, and that everyone is willing to help each other out.

Tell us about the most interesting project you have worked on during your career.

Can I call myself a project? I have loved delving further into wheelchair prescriptions, including mounting communication devices or environmental controls or switches. It's also been interesting to work with such a variety of clients, aged 9 months to 100 years old, and with different abilities and goals, such as wanting to tie up hair or put on earrings one-handed, or wanting to lay comfortably whilst being assisted to bathe, or wanting to engage in sexual activity. I also enjoyed exploring wider WA, going out on country trips from Carnarvon to Esperance to Laverton and meeting all sorts of people in between.

Describe a memorable moment arising from your role.

I always remember a lovely client I worked with who told me she would go through a drive through of a fast-food chain every day to buy a large coffee, because she couldn't tip her kettle to make her own. She would keep putting the coffee in the microwave to reheat it throughout the day, so that she could get her caffeine hit. She received an Uccello Tippable kettle, which allowed her to tip the kettle instead of lifting the hot water to pour it, and it meant that she could make her own coffee each day. It also meant that when her friends came over, she could make them a coffee. It had an ongoing impact on her social life, her self-efficacy, and her finances, and it was lovely to watch her enjoy doing it by herself. It's such a small thing, but the engagement and independence it provided was so important.

Of the four Indigo values (integrity, passion, creativity, together), which one do you express the most strongly during your workday, and why?

Passion is super important to me. I have a passion (my family may call it an obsession) about the importance of engaging in meaningful occupation, and about the impact of assistive technology. I feel like passion leads you to work creatively and as a team with integrity, so in essence, I express them all.