Case Study

Ambient

For over 19 years, Coretek are proud to be the IT partner for one of the UK’s leading care providers, helping them implement several key projects including developing their main line of business app, rolling out Wi-Fi throughout the company and their migration to the cloud. All of which played a huge role in their growth and allowed them to provide a fantastic level of care for their residents.

Their IT Challenges

Ambient’s tagline is “Passionate About People” and they had several key challenges to ensure their IT systems were working hard to help them provide the highest level of care for all residents.

For years Ambient had operated with disparate, paper-based systems, which could lead to inefficiencies and miscommunication. Ambient know the importance of focusing on care and their previous IT systems were taking time away from doing this.

Ambient are a UK-wide care provider with over 150 different locations. As they grew and acquired more homes, it became vitally important that all staff would be able to access the same information and systems from one central place. This would ensure consistency across the whole organisation, regardless of location. Furthermore, this would also provide centralised reporting so head office would be able to have an overview of the company as a whole to make important business decisions.

To resolve the issues mentioned above, Ambient recognised that they would need to improve their underlying IT infrastructure first. Their previous IT estate consisted of a fully on-premise server infrastructure that was quickly approaching end-of-life. This would be prohibitively expensive to replace and would not offer the scalability needed as the business grew. They needed a secure, cost-effective IT infrastructure with room for growth.

Finally, many of the residential and respite homes did not have adequate wi-fi infrastructures, making it difficult for the staff to be more mobile with technology. Also, with the COVID-19 lockdowns, Ambient wanted to ensure staff and users at the services were able to stay in contact with friends, family and loved ones remotely. This meant having reliable and fast internet access became vitally important.

About Ambient

Ambient are one of the UK’s largest care providers with over 1500 employees located across 150 locations. They specialise in providing care and support for older people, people with a learning disability and those with mental health needs. This is provided in various forms:

For Older People – fully supported 24-hour residential care, through to care with nursing, day services, respite care, end of life care and housing with additional care for those who are more independent
For those with a Learning Disability – residential care homes through to supported living, short breaks, respite and day services
For those with Mental Health needs – from 24-hour intensive support, through to a flexible needs-based approach in the community

See their website for more details at www.ambient.org.uk

Our Solutions

Hybrid Cloud Environment

Over the past 6 years, Ambient has invested in a new Hybrid Cloud environment. Hybrid Cloud is an environment that combines public clouds and private clouds by allowing data and applications to be shared between them. Ambient utilises their private cloud for secure desktop access, line of business applications and network data. The Public Cloud resource is Microsoft Azure and Office 365, which provides productivity tools such as Microsoft Office and email.

This environment was designed, built and is fully managed by Coretek. The investment provides a secure framework that will better support the organisation and its future needs, including developing and hosting future applications to support the strategic plans of the Group.

Enterprise Care System

Coretek worked with Ambient to develop The Enterprise Care System (EPiC).

This solution provides a common and consistent application interface for members across all teams to improve the recording of client information, including care plans, maintenance plans, client details and enabling dynamic management reporting and ultimately improving the level of care to their customers.

The Enterprise Care system has been built with support and care at its core. Coretek worked closely with Ambient’s Care home managers, team leaders and support staff to ensure the EPiC solution meets their functional requirements and their vision.

A secure system which works for Ambient users and Care services enabling them to be more efficient and spend more time on care
Aim to improve CQC rating and drive up quality using technology
Reduce time on administration ensuring staff have timely reminders and action prompts
Management reporting to make decisions to further improve their care service, Provide a system to ensure data accuracy, data analysis and dynamic KPI reporting
Provide a remote link and sharing of information with the client’s family and/or friends improving socialisation and connection.
Connect to 3rd parties for better service e.g. contractors for asset servicing

WiFi Rollout

To provide fast and reliable internet access to all residents across the company, Coretek provided a cost-effective and secure Wifi infrastructure in every care home. This included centralised management for ease of deployment and ongoing management for Ambient’s in-house IT team.

Don't just take our word for it

“As well as helping us migrate our IT services to the cloud, Coretek has been instrumental in providing connectivity, managed wireless and access control to all care homes in the group. It has made a massive difference in the wellbeing of the people staying in our homes as they can now communicate with their loved ones via technology. This has never been more important than ever under the global pandemic.”

Dave Andrews
Head of IT at Ambient

Top 5 Benefits

Here are the top benefits Ambient gained from working with us:

NHybrid Cloud provides scalable, cost-effective foundations for growth

NStaff can access consistent records and systems quickly from any location

NMore time spent on care and less on firefighting IT issues

NUpdated WiFi allows residents to stay in contact with friends and family

NReports and insights for management to further improve their care service

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