An ICT Strategy for the Aboriginal Community Elders Service

The Aboriginal Community Elders Services Inc (ACES) is a Not-For-Profit Aboriginal community-controlled organisation. ACES have two co-located residential aged care facilities – the Nursing Home and the Hostel.

ACES was looking for an ICT Consulting organisation who could provide technical leadership to review their current IT landscape and develop a strategy that mitigated any identified risks whilst improving the use and efficiency of IT services to meet the needs of ACES staff and clients.

An IT strategy and roadmap was developed that will move ACES from their current model to one that will form a platform for planned growth and enhanced IT services to both Elders and staff.

A recent review of the IT environment revealed several areas that required modernisation to enable the effective delivery of the expected IT services: the use of reaching “End of Life/End of Support” software and hardware and the lack of tools leading to a number of time-consuming manual tasks and processes.

Key to the success of the development of an appropriate and practical strategy was the early engagement with the principal ACES stake holders. This provided valuable insights into the specific requirements and challenges faced by a small not for profit organisation.
The strategy that Frame developed was broken into five parts.

• End user computing
• ICT Infrastructure and Service Continuity
• Business Applications
• IT Operations
• Cybersecurity

The strategy utilised the existing investment in Microsoft technologies to promote a Microsoft 365 and Azure based solution that took advantage of the reduced pricing and access to free training and technical advice that Microsoft offers to not for profit organisations. This solution included:

• Promoting the involvement of specialist service providers who work with not-for-profit organisations to implement and support IT solutions
• An across-the-board technology uplift to provide a platform for ACES to implement the applicable findings from the Royal Commission, namely;
  • adopting cloud capabilities for their IT solutions as appropriate,
  • adopting smart technology in the homes of aged care Elders to help in the provision of care,
  • provision by residential aged care providers of broadband internet and WiFi capabilities across their facilities
  • digital literacy training for personal care worker registration or employment
  • investment in assistive technologies and home monitors for older people to provide enhanced care
  • provision of TeleHealth Aged Care capabilities
• Hardware refresh of end user devices, including those used by Elders, whilst moving to an InTune management solution to simplify deployment and management
• Migration of current server workloads and applications from on-premise aging hardware to Azure based services, including backup, using the ‘X As a Service’ model where possible
• Refresh of network connectivity to utilise NBN and 4G options, particularly when providing services for remote care such as TeleHealth
• Implementation of role based profiles so that application access is dependent on job function
• Implementation of mandatory basic security training for all staff ahead of deploying a two factor authentication solution

Frame provided this ICT Consulting engagement on a pro-bono basis as part of our corporate social responsibility and to support in a small way the strengthening of the voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“Andrew Patterson, Craig Castle and the team at Frame were professional and good to work with especially during the severest lockdowns over 2020-22. Craig led the conversation and worked with us and provided ACES with an end-product Strategy which will help us with our IT and Cybersecurity requirements for the next few years when we expect to grow as an organisation. Frame’s pro bono engagement was professional and delivered on a timely basis for us.”

James Atkinson, ACES CEO