Austin Health has been one of our valued clients since 2011. We have a strong working relationship with them, providing facilities and asset maintenance services for their hospital facilities and equipment.

We provide them with 24/7 service to ensure continuous operation of their vital assets.

Maintenance works improvements

In 2019, we recognised an opportunity to optimise the way maintenance works were approved to deliver Austin Health both time and cost savings. 

Our team of talented and engaged people came up with the solution of automating the approval process so that we would have the authority to approve works on behalf of our client, within prescribed guidelines. 

Austin Health approved the proposal, which forecast a 10% improvement in cost savings, which could in turn be reinvested by the client into other quoted works awaiting funding.  

Savings came from being able to withhold action on low priority work orders until they could be bundled with others, enabling the team to service more than one work order per site visit. The maximum withholding time for any work order is two weeks. 

The new automated approval framework has been operating since July 2019 and has well exceeded the forecast savings for our client. 

This solution has improved our level of service excellence, by making the process more seamless for our client.

IoT sensors at Austin Hospital

Austin Hospital is a major teaching public hospital located in Melbourne's north eastern suburb of Heidelberg, and is administered by Austin Health, along with the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital and the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre. 

In March 2020, our Digital Services team installed IoT sensors at Austin Hospital to ensure the operational continuity of key areas such as operating theatres, kitchens and patients labs.  

More than 70 sensors provide real time monitoring of critical assets such as pumps and Air Handling Units to maintain optimal temperature and air quality throughout the facility. This helps their team ensure that patients and medical staff can operate without disruption. 

This became even more critical for the facility given the implementation was quickly followed by an increase in the need for medical services, and a corresponding demand on infection control, due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Following that initial installation, more recently our team installed additional sensors in response to a time-sensitive request from the client. The client needed to ensure negative air flow bias which was required for separation of rooms and hallways for COVID-19 patients with more severe symptoms.

Project Director Phil Treeby says his team responded quickly and installed more sensors on existing motors. 

"This meant that they could drive the motor on the exhaust fan faster to assist with a negative air pressure bias into the COVID wards and rooms," Phil says. "This was achieved and at the same time we were able to monitor their temperature status continuously via IoT sensors. This gave us comfort and certainty that the changes made were sustainable" 

Phil says the team achieved the goal of making existing assets work harder without additional cost/effort to meet the increased demand from the crisis. It was also achieved with safety top of mind.  

This was a quick and nimble response, leveraging the nature of simple IoT technology using existing gateways in place for other sensors.

For more information on our IoT capabilities, or other digital services, visit here.