Connect2Care is a community-based allied health provider founded about seven years ago by two Physiotherapists, Nikki and Kim, in Victoria. What started as a small practice has grown to around 160 staff across Australia, with a caseload that includes clients of the NDIS, private and medicare funded clients, schools, child-care and clients supported by the aged care scheme.
We spoke to Nikki Katz, the Co-CEO and Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead, at Connect2Care, about their journey and experience, integrating Heidi AI Evidence into their clinical practice.
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Challenges
Connect2Care’s growth has been rapid, and so has the complexity that comes with supporting a national team. With around 120 clinicians delivering care across diverse settings, documentation and reporting aren’t just admin tasks; they shape outcomes, funding decisions, and continuity of care. The team needed a way to keep standards high without adding pressure to already busy clinicians.
Reporting volume and expectations
“A really large piece of our workload is… reporting.” - Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead
As the practice scaled, reporting became a major workload driver. Clinicians weren’t only writing notes - they were producing reports that needed to be clear, detailed, and defensible, often linked to NDIS goals, functional impact, and funding justification.
Keeping evidence-based practice current, without slowing clinicians down
“Keeping up with evidence is so important for our profession.” - Nikki Katz, Co-CEO
For Nikki, evidence-based practice isn’t optional - it’s core to safe, modern care. But as evidence changes quickly, the challenge is making it accessible in a way that clinicians can actually use during real-world work (not just in theory, or “when there’s time later”).
Fragmented evidence workflows and inconsistent access across a growing team
“The approach of searching for evidence varied a lot across all clinicians… it wasn't an efficient process.” - Nikki Katz, Co-CEO
Before Heidi Evidence, clinicians used a mix of approaches: university access, journal clubs, PubMed searches, and internal SharePoint libraries - all with different levels of success depending on training, time, and familiarity. As the organisation grew, “where to find it” (and “how to use it”) became increasingly inconsistent.
Over time, the team tried to lift evidence access through shared resources and internal processes, but the friction remained. That changed when Heidi entered the picture: first to support documentation, then to bring evidence into the same workflow clinicians were already using.
Solution
The team started with Heidi’s scribe in 2025, and the day-to-day value, particularly for reporting and administrative load, was evident immediately.
“We introduced Heidi to a small pilot, and then Handrie and Ellie basically said they’d leave if I took it away.” - Nikki Katz, Co-CEO
When Heidi Evidence was introduced, Nikki was initially cautious, and curious, because evidence is central to allied health, and NDIS documentation often hinges on justification.
“I think that when it was first mentioned, I was a little bit skeptical but also a little bit excited.” - Nikki Katz, Co-CEO
What shifted her from curiosity to conviction was seeing how Evidence strengthened reporting quality and justification.
“I would say that whilst we were producing quality reports, and documentation before, I'd suggest the introduction of evidence significantly improved that quality piece.” - Nikki Katz, Co-CEO
For Handrie, a key “a-ha” moment was having relevant information available while supervising clinicians, without leaving the conversation or breaking workflow.
“You have that information available on the spot, which for me was quite valuable, and it's been pretty accurate as well.” - Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead
Nikki and Handrie’s favourite ways of using Heidi:
Evidence and justification during supervision: using prompts and flags (e.g., diabetes management) to guide clinical reasoning and strengthen report language.
NDIS-aligned report support: tightening prompts so outputs map clearly to NDIS guidelines and disability impact.
Keeping everything in one platform: reducing switching between systems and making it easier for clinicians who don’t feel “tech savvy” to still work efficiently.
Impact
“Huge. Yeah, surely. Huge.”
With Heidi, Connect2Care brought documentation and evidence closer to the point of care and closer to the reality of how clinicians actually work. Instead of hunting across multiple sources, clinicians could generate structured notes and evidence-backed justification while staying focused on the client and the clinical problem in front of them.
Key outcomes:
Faster workflow by reducing tool-switching and keeping documentation and evidence together.
Stronger, clearer NDIS justification aligned to guidelines and disability impact.
Better support for clinicians through supervision with more structured prompting and “in the moment” evidence access.
Improved consistency across a large team with varied training backgrounds and confidence using digital tools.
More defensible reporting and NDIS justification
“The fact that you can choose Australian-specific sources — for me that is a game changer.” - Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead
Handrie described how Australian-specific sources strengthened the credibility of recommendations, particularly when justifying supports that must “carry weight locally” in NDIS reporting.
“In the NDIS context, if you have those local resources, it really makes a lot of difference.”
Faster, smoother workflows with everything in one place
“Having everything on the same platform makes that workflow much quicker. Everything is there.” - Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead
For a team using multiple tools (CRM, practice platforms, assessments), the difference wasn’t only what Heidi could do, it was where it lived: inside the workflow, alongside the client context.
Stronger supervision and decision-making, in real time
“It actually popped up a flag to say diabetes red flag and prompted me to ask a little bit more.” - Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead
Instead of supervision relying on memory or “finding evidence later,” Heidi supported better questions in the moment, helping supervisors and clinicians go deeper without losing momentum.
Unexpected benefit: better prompting became a skill the team could share
“The deeper you dig, the better the answer will be.” - Handrie Venter, Clinical Lead
As clinicians learned to refine prompts, the tool didn’t just provide outputs, it helped build capability in how clinicians ask, clarify, and justify.
What’s next
“I think the biggest thing will be training on how to use it, when to use it, and prompting people on thinking more broadly about how and when you might use evidence to make the most of the tool.” - Nikki Katz, Co-CEO
With Heidi embedded in their suite of tools, Connect2Care’s focus is now on consistency at scale: helping more clinicians move from “basic use” to confident, high-quality prompting, and making evidence a natural part of everyday clinical thinking, supervision, and reporting.
