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Residents, clients, patients, and the people who care for them in aged care settings are the living embodiment of resilience. Could their lifelong lessons also set the template for IT providers? John Sutherland, HammondCare’s Chief Information Officer, and Dave Stevens, Founder and Managing Director of Brennan, sat down with Aged Care Insite to find the answers.

Defined as ‘the capacity to withstand, adjust to, or recover from misfortune, difficulties, or change’, resilience is, in the words of the philosopher Alain de Botton, “A good half of the art of living.”

Resilience picks us up after knock-backs, conditions us to adapt to unavoidable change, and trains us to move on when we should. People in aged care settings and the staff who provide their care are the living embodiment of resilience.

Earlier this year, we made the case for IT maturity as the answer to today’s opportunities and tomorrow’s challenges in the aged care sector. But could resilience prove just as powerful?

In an era upended by digital transformation, an economy buffeted by unprecedented headwinds, and an aged care sector grappling with generational challenges, resilience and continuity have become operational necessities.

The compounding power of continuity.

HammondCare, a leading care provider, are pressing the charge on both fronts. The core services that knit together their daily operations – Service Deck and telephony are two prime examples – can have a profound effect on the continuity of patient care. Often taken for granted when working as they should, everyone feels their absence when they don’t.

“The outsourced service desk and telephony services are pivotal in bolstering resilience across critical areas of our operations,” says John Sutherland, HammondCare’s Chief Information Officer. “These foundational services are significant for any organisation.”

The provision and management of resilient services fulfil a number of HammondCare’s core operational needs. But it’s the ripple effect of this resilience that HammondCare value.

Systems resilience is creating an efficiency lift. In turn, those efficiency gains are expanding HammondCare’s organisational capacity to focus on projects and areas that matter most to the business – improving quality of life for people in need.

“HammondCare, like most providers across the aged care sector, have been making significant investments to modernise systems and processes,” explains Sutherland. “Service desk and telephony, when managed effectively, ensure seamless operations. When employees can rely on timely and efficient issue resolution, it frees our internal teams to prioritise impactful projects, all with the aim of improving the quality of care for our clients, residents and patients.”

Weathering the storms of change.

Resilience isn’t a position confined exclusively to aged care settings. It’s a posture a multitude of sectors are mindful of, as Dave Stevens, the founder and Managing Director of Brennan, Australia’s leading systems integrator and outsourced IT partner, explains.

“Resilience is not just about weathering storms,” says Stevens “But thriving in the face of adversity. Resilience is about being prepared. It’s how well an organisation can absorb the stress of unforeseen circumstances and how swiftly they can restore critical operations.”

“This includes reducing vulnerabilities by eliminating single points of failure, and implementing robust data governance, back up and security.”

All of these issues were thrown into stark relief at the outset of COVID and were keenly felt across the aged care sector.

“As a black swan event that impacted everyone, COVID underlined how deeply interlinked IT resilience is to business resilience,” says Stevens.

“As it was unfolding, a majority of organisations had to redefine how they did business. They had to stand up new ways of working overnight. Post-pandemic, it’s been about how you attract staff back to the office, but also how you securely manage and govern remote workers and the rise of SaaS based platforms that aren’t on your network.”

Navigating the complexities.

Stevens is keenly aware that the challenges in creating business resilience are multifaceted and increasingly demand a diverse blend of skills spanning the entire IT environment, including cloud and infrastructure, networks, cybersecurity, applications, and telecommunications.

“As the technology mix has grown, so have the challenges in managing it all. Navigating those complexities requires best-of-breed partners. Not because organisations lack the will to take those challenges on, but simply because they don’t have the resources or headcount to do it in-house,” says Stevens. “With the technology and business landscape only set to grow in complexity, businesses should absolutely call on experienced specialists, rather than shouldering the burden of building up those specialist skills in-house.”

Sitting across it all are growing concerns about cybersecurity, and the steps needed to safeguard business operations.

“From a security perspective, the vast majority of incidents happen at the edge on a user’s device, rather than a system bug that gets exploited,” says Stevens. “With 24×7 Security Operations Centre and Network Operations Centre, Brennan remains vigilant, running in preventative mode to enable proactive security measures. Incident response capabilities need to be always-on and proactive – not only to prevent dips in service delivery, but to avoid reputational damage.”