FEATURE ARTICLES
INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS A CRITICAL INVESTMENT STRATEGY WORTH ADOPTING By David Erczmann General Manager LinkSafe
In the last 18-months COVID has perpetuated dramatic change. And with that change has come a seismic shift in expectation that has driven a different approach to how things are done to what they were in the past. Life pre-COVID is now a distant memory of days gone by. But Australia’s Healthcare networks aren’t immune from COVID’s ravages and challenges either. Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital was forced to shut its entire oncology ward last year because of COVID and infected visitor to the Hospital. So, stepping up the need for developing greater COVID strategies through implementing technology is vitally important. Lockdowns fuelled by outbreaks, have become an inevitable part of life, and how governments react toward containing and managing the spread of COVID along with a vaccine program is designed to ensure every Australian is now vaccinated. It’s building a secure fortress – guaranteeing protection for Australian’s but it’s also about fortifying Australia’s health network where health workers are playing a major role as the frontline of defence to protect the very people working to protect us and ensure their workplaces are COVID free – clear of the destructive challenges of an environment where at times, uncertainty reigns because of what is on offer. Helping secure that fortress are contractors - and the vital role they play in ensuring hospitals remain safe and compliant where critical work still needs to be undertaken. Its ensuring a step isn’t missed in a beat of major significance. Heartbreaking devastation carries with it a reasonable description of the despair that has been on show and the agonising pain of sorrow that has presented Australians. Businesses destroyed, lives ruined and the sense of a failing hope of returning to a life that once was – life without restriction, anxiety, or fear. It’s been a strenuous time for the healthcare network and around how it, and its members, manoeuvre a minefield where every step they take is laden with consequences if the wrong move is made.
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Looking from the outside in, it’s hard not to feel for what a challenging time it continues to be for the healthcare network and the facilities they run. Ensuring healthcare facilities remain operational and guaranteeing the safety and wellbeing of staff and contractors is critical. If healthcare facilities cease to engage contractors – it’s a disaster waiting with impending consequences. Healthcare operators need to continue to operate and allow contractors to have access to sites and ensure they keep the maintenance of essential services across facilities functioning as though they weren’t in lockdown. The welfare of staff and contractors continue to remain paramount regardless of whether lockdowns are imposed. If anything, ensuring safety should be heightened. Employee and contractor safety doesn’t take a holiday because of lockdown enforcements – it’s an unavoidable move healthcare facilities must strategise for and deal with as a key priority. Guaranteeing the operational maintenance of items and services like fire suppression systems, HVAC, clinical device servicing, health care operators, along with the other services that exist within healthcare networks, play a critical and vital role in safety and how efficiently they function. Healthcare facilities must be fully functional and to ensure they are, contractors still need to have access regardless of a lockdown enforced. Mitigating the risk of spread of infection of COVID amongst Healthcare networks, is an understandable concern. How they mitigate the containment of any potential spread also gets back to managing time spent by contractors on site and knowing where they are. Planning by management around time and minimizing all contractor’s presence on site has to be an implementable policy enforced where staff and contractors understand the policy of what ‘on-site presence’ really means. Time spent on-site for contractors can be limited by enforcing policy that ensures contractors do what they’re meant to do, rather than undertaking a face-to-face induction
