Enterprise cloud OS leader, Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), today announced it has helped leading Australian aged care provider, Whiddon Group, to support the organisation’s technology initiatives as it seeks to attract new staff to an industry struggling to modernise and lift itself out of debt.
Long-established Whiddon Group is an award-winning aged care provider employing more than 2,700 staff, caring for more than 2,100 older Australians in regional NSW and QLD.
The organisation has faced a number of challenges including difficulty attracting new and younger staff; an overall reduction in technology investment due to the significant challenges regarding industry funding models, with the majority of rural, regional and remote providers operating at a loss; industry-wide lack of technological maturity and digital literacy; and ageing IT infrastructure.
A report by chartered accountants StewartBrown found that, excluding the impact of one-off government grants, more than 50 per cent of residential aged care providers operated at a loss in the last financial year, rising to 66 per cent in regional areas.
“We’re probably the only industry still reliant on the fax machine,” said Regan Stathers, Exec GM Technology and Property, Whiddon.
“Whiddon has always tried to focus on digital enablement, but it’s a difficult time for the industry. Technology investment is not seen as a priority and other stakeholders lag behind in digital maturity and dexterity. It became an issue in attracting new, digital natives to the profession which we desperately need.”
Whiddon decided to overhaul its IT infrastructure to create a platform that would help future-proof its business and tackle these challenges head on. It evaluated a range of options including traditional datacentres and public cloud.
It ultimately selected Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure primarily due to its efficiency, scalability and security, alongside trusted IT partner Communications Design & Management Pty Ltd (CDM). The organisation felt public cloud would prove too costly, make it difficult to protect data and take away control over its environment.
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) allows all hardware, storage and software to reside virtually in your own private cloud, significantly improving areas such as cybersecurity and scalability.
Nutanix now runs all of Whiddon’s core applications. Processes that once required two hours have been reduced to 30 seconds, helping to enable the IT team to focus on technical projects that can improve resident care, deploy modern applications new staff would expect, and achieve greater business performance.
Power consumption has also been reduced by 50% with Nutanix compared with its previous infrastructure, allowing it to redirect much needed funds to frontline services.
