Australian Finnish Rest Home Association (AFRHA)

From Crisis to Calm

• This is the GOOD stuff !

You made the right choice to come here.

The Calm

Before the Storm

Background

• AFRHA operates a small (45 Bed) Aged Care Facility in Thornlands – Brisbane.

• Also a 23 unit Retirement Village and

• “Finncare” – a Home and Community Care service

• Total staff is appx. 100

• In 2008, AFRHA won an award at the ITAC conference for the best Implementation of Software…

Background

• By January 2012 AFRHA was facing a major dilemma in IT.

• The network was groaning under the weight of applications and users.

• Hardware was fast approaching “use-by-date”.

• Management fingernails had been chewed to the quick.

So, how did we end up in an IT crisis?

January 2012 our network looked like this.

Issues

• Years of patching-up and doing things on a shoe-string.

• Expertise and knowledge concentrated in too few people

• The Board did not have a big-picture of the I.T. requirements

• Management and the Board were mesmerised by the software side.

Then it hit the fan…

• The network guru was offered a job he could not refuse. Bye bye guru.

• 2 people with knowledge of “systems” were left holding the bag.

• External IT company called into audit and support the two bunnies. (What’s the password to this server/router/software??)

• N# One bunny starts learning network administration with great urgency.

Lesson N# 1

Technology = People

Someone needs to be in control of services and this needs to be formalised.

People are the users and the users are the drivers for what is needed and how it works.

Lesson N# 2

Document Everything.

Back to the Rabbits

• Bunny N# 1 attends ITAC conference

• Bunny N# 1 begins to build a network at home to duplicate AFRHA network

• Karma: this leads to meeting a person who suggests seeking out DONORTEC !

• Que: trumpets and heavenly choir.

Donortec has come into our lives !

Budget

• Things are still not completely free.

• But at least we could start to plan.

• “Interesting” discussions ensued with the Board

• They were still mesmerised by software and licencing.

Lesson N# 3

• Have a Budget

• If you are small, have a small budget

• If you are big, have an enormous budget

It will never be enough.

Lesson N# 4

I.T. people need to make the IT decisions.

(Technology = People)

Getting to now.

Funding was eventually agreed and the IT partner started work.

However, this would not have been possible without a partnership to ConnectingUp.

Back to Calm

• We now have a stable IT environment.

• Software works well and licencing is 100% up to date.

• The hardware is robust and will see us through at least 5 years of growth (provided maintenance happens).

• The bunnies can have a rest.