Case Studies

Client: Nursing & Residential Care Home Group

Specification: Communications and shared access to a central system around 5 UK sites.

Initially, the 5 homes were managed from a head office. The MD wanted to increase efficiency by decentralising the management of the homes, giving each site manager the responsibility of managing his or her care home. In terms of technology, this meant he needed to be able to access all records, and be able to communicate from each of the five sites as if he were working from the head office. He needed to upgrade working procedures and centralise file storage in order to minimise work duplication across the site.

TMS project-managed the IT arm of this change. The first step was to install wireless networks into the five homes, controlled from one central server through which all communications are routed. Every employee was given access to and received training on email, which significantly reduced the cost of phone calls. Faxes are also now received and transmitted through email which means they can be received at any location.

All files are stored on one central server, and backups are made automatically. TMS now provides a technical support service to Avalon to ensure that the backups and network connections are secure.

Managing Director comments:

“I find that I am now able to run the business to my agenda. I am able to see pretty much 90% of my business through my computer, with the other 10% being records that we have to keep on paper. I can even access all my electronic work files from home, which makes life a lot easier.

The success of the technology has meant I can spend more time focussing on the actual business, and for the first time can start thinking about growth. I have more time to spend talking with the site managers. I always thought that technology would mean less human contact. On the contrary it has opened the door to more.

We can’t justify the expense of a full time IT manager, so it was a relief when someone recommended TMS. We have found with TMS that they can really deliver a project. What we have here is really robust, and now that its finished we also receive TMS’s support service. It's reassuring to know that if I need to make a change, or if we need to adapt our processes to our business, TMS is there to do it.”