How to make sure your aged care organisation is technology-enabled.
Here in Australia, quality aged care doesn’t happen in isolation. The relationship between a customer and their home-care provider or community-care provider is enhanced by a much broader aged care ecosystem, which includes GPs, medical specialists, pathology and medical imaging services, counsellors, government agencies, specific service providers, medical equipment suppliers and much more.
Having ongoing and accurate communication, while ensuring everyone is operating at their most efficient, is a vital part of the equation. No, more than ever, aged care providers need a reliable Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure in place.
But how do you know if your organisation’s ICT is up to scratch? And if it isn’t, what needs to be done about it? Try asking these five questions:
- Is it scalable?
To keep pace with an ever-changing sector, it’s important to have a very scalable and flexible ICT infrastructure, which can expand with your organisation, or contract if it needs to, to minimise costs. By embracing cloud infrastructure services, organisations can adapt quickly and save considerably when it comes to overall infrastructure costs.
- Is it secure?
Your organisation gathers and stores a large volume of sensitive data about the people within your care, as well as the medical professionals, employees and suppliers with whom you partner. For these reasons, it’s vital your IT environment is as watertight, up-to-date and reliable as possible.
With cyber-attacks continuing to rise, security must be embedded throughout your IT environment to minimise the risk of data breaches. That is why the Australian Government recommends businesses implement the ‘Essential Eight’ strategy as a foundation.
- Is it easy to manage?
Typically, Australia’s age services industry has lacked overarching ICT solutions, and many operators are working with disparate, dated and disconnected technology in place. Many aged care providers also employ a wide range of staff with diverse skillsets, which can make it difficult to ensure consistent adoption. For aged care providers to be successful, it is important to have a single, streamlined and unified approach to technology—with a centralised solution that delivers overarching insight.
- Is it consumer-focused?
To stay competitive, modern home-based and aged care organisations need to focus on the needs of the people within their care; giving them access to the information and resources they need, whenever they need it.
Having an efficient ICT infrastructure also means employees can get the information they need to provide faster responses and a more detailed level of care, as well as ensure that the right stakeholders are involved in individual cases.
- Do you have a solid data backup and disaster recovery system in place?
The growth in disparate hybrid IT environments means disaster recovery and backup is far more complex and nuanced than ever before. To maintain continuity and be ready for any situation, thorough planning and strategy are critical – this involves having both a reliable data backup process in place, as well as a disaster recovery solution.
How can Brennan help your Aged Care organisation?
- Hybrid IT Services
Regardless of how infrastructure is currently set up (cloud or on-premises), creating a seamless, cost-effective and reliable IT environment, both short and long term is vital. Our Managed Hybrid IT solutions can provide you with a streamlined and overarching solution.
We can help by providing rigorous solutions that are completely tailored to individual organisations—ensuring that if a disaster occurs, the business can be back up and running extremely quickly.
- Cybersecurity
In an increasingly complex and risky environment, you can’t afford to let security slide. Brennan can help protect your aged care organisation through our managed IT security services.
Want to find out more?
If you’re interested in finding out more about the role of ICT in healthcare and how Brennan can help, download this eBrochure: Positioning your home-based or community healthcare business for the future. Alternatively, feel free to get in touch with our team here, or give us a call on 1300 500 000.