Bridging the isolation gap for clients in need
As a community care provider delivering critical services including medical, family services, counselling support and other health services, shutting up shop was not an option. StarHealth urgently needed to find an alternative solution for their care workers to continue to reach the communities who required their services.
The challenge for this model of operation is enabling front line care workers who need to maintain appointments with clients, where the types of conversations are best delivered face-to-face.
Fortunately, StarHealth had recently modernised their technology environment with Logicalis:
Mike Diamond, ICT Manager advised: ‘The upgrade which included Windows 10, MS Direct Access, Office 365, Citrix and Cloud hosting provided an efficient and effective set of options to allow our workers to work from any device almost anywhere.
What they hadn’t planned for until the COVID-19 pandemic, was the necessity that would arise in making this collaboration technology fit for purpose in delivering client appointments.
How technology delivered part of the outcome
StarHealth IT came to Logicalis’s Consulting and Advisory team with an urgent brief, they needed to implement a video conferencing solution that permits staff interaction with external clients, groups and, partners - preferably by tomorrow!
Like most technology implementations, the technology was the least important part of the puzzle, the critical part to get right was the change management surrounding the employee and customer experience and interaction and to ensure service continuity in what can be a lifeline for those in need. Logicalis managed to get the solution up and running within a week.
The solution
Logicalis worked with StarHealth to identify options to deliver video and or voice services capability for care workers to be able to book appointments with clients. As StarHealth is an existing Office 365 customer and use Microsoft Teams internally it was a logical extension to enable external collaboration capabilities that could deliver a high-quality virtual meeting experience.
Care workers can book appointments with clients via Teams to enable a Telehealth Video Conference experience on a PC or mobile device. In the situation where the client does not have an appropriate device, a dial-in to a toll free phone number is available.
To ensure StarHealth’s care workers were comfortable with the solution, Logicalis’s Consulting and Advisory team developed training resources and reference guides for staff and clients.
StarHealth’s ICT Manager Mike Diamond shared his optimistic view : “While we’re all still adapting to the “new normal”, our tech platform is allowing us to ensure that the disruption to our clients (the people who need us most) is kept to the absolute minimum.”
Now phase one is complete, the project team will look to unlock some of the additional capability in MS Teams including data capture from client meetings, AI Bot driven FAQ’s for knowledge hub facilitation and transcript capture to name a few.
To find out how Logicalis can enable or enhance your organisations collaboration needs, please request a call via this form.
