Not-for-profit aged care service provider HammondCare has tapped German enterprise monitoring solutions provider Paessler to proactively monitor its IT infrastructure nationwide.

With more than 5,100 dedicated staff and volunteers, HammondCare delivers aged care, dementia care and palliative care to around 34,000 clients in over 92 service locations across Australia.

It has rolled out the Paessler PRTG, a round-the-clock network monitoring software, across its 76 care facilities. 

WHY IT MATTERS

"HammondCare’s primary objective in implementing the Paessler PRTG monitoring platform was to provide our team with proactive insights and alerts to minimise the regular incidents that were occurring previously," infrastructure and cloud manager Kasun Haputhanthri said.

Since deploying the PRTG software, it has seen a 75% reduction in IT team callouts to resolve issues that could lead to possible IT outages. 

According to a media release, this system can quickly identify and resolve potential issues by sending alerts to a Microsoft Teams group, forwarding emails to appropriate technicians, and pushing notifications about anomalies via the PRTG mobile app.

"Paessler PRTG has enabled faster resolution of IT problems, allowing me and my team to be more proactive and efficient and has ultimately achieved its primary objective of minimising downtime," Haputhanthri claimed.

HammondCare is now using over 2,500 network sensors as part of the PRTG system and plans to add more in the future. It is now also adding monitoring for essential healthcare equipment like nurse call buttons and is planning to digitise all its assets that the PRTG can monitor. 

THE LARGER TREND

In 2021, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety noted how the aged care sector was "deeply analogue" and "well behind" other sectors in the use and application of modern technologies. The recently formed Aged Care Technology Consortium also revealed in a report in June last year that there was a lack of digital system implementations across the aged care sector.

To this end, the federal government announced in October that it pledged A$312.6 million (around $200 million) in funding over four years to improve the ICT systems in the sector.

In other related news, HammondCare recently tried out telehealth for clients on home care packages living in regional and remote areas of New South Wales. Its Virtual Restorative Care programme connects these home care clients to occupational therapists, dieticians, physiotherapy and physiology consultations via virtual technology.