INSIGHTS FROM INDUSTRY
IS YOUR ICT UP TO SCRATCH? HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR AGED CARE ORGANISATION IS TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED
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ere 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.
1. 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. 2. 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 risk of data breaches. That is why the Australian Government recommends businesses to 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
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