Is your ICT up to scratch?

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.

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

approach to technology—with a centralised solution that delivers overarching insight.

3. 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.

4. 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 IT 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 IT can help protect your aged care organisation through our managed IT security services.

Michelle Primmer is Head of Marketing, Brennan IT. For more information visit www.brennanit.com.au

LASA

Community Partnerships

We’re starting with the next generation. Are you?

Are you ready to partner with LASA Next Gen to engage your young leaders in discussions about our industry’s future and ensure we have a strong, resilient workforce? Young workers understand the challenges facing our industry. They are seeking experiences and opportunities to be part of the solution.

By becoming a LASA Next Gen Community Partner you and your staff can:

Gain access to our exclusive online community

Connect with industry colleagues on key workforce issues

Build your network and industry knowledge

Attend our events and share your expertise

Access our growing resources to engage young leaders in age services Join us and build capacity in your workplace, while building the workforce of the future. Find out how you can become a LASA Next Gen Community Partner today!

LASA Principal Advisor Next Gen Samantha Bowen

NextGen@lasa.asn.au