Julie Babineau (Odyssey House).
Managed service provider (MSP) mcrIT has undertaken a modernisation project with not-for profit (NFP) rehab clinic Odyssey House, upgrading its servers, network, desktop, intranet and telephony.
Earmarked as the ‘One Odyssey’ strategy, it kicked off in 2018 and has since seen mcrIT improve operations across Odyssey House's six sites in Australia including two residential rehabilitation centres with medical facilities and staff who depend on the ability to securely access patient data..
One particular overarching business goal was to unite these two disparate Odyssey House organisations. Given the critical rehabilitation, treatment and education services Odyssey House provides, finding a reliable and knowledgeable partner of NFP compliance guidelines and security was integral.
This project included the procurement of refurbished laptops and desktops from another NFP, WorkVentures. A total refresh of the network was implemented, leveraging 4G backup for remote locations with unstable Internet services, which provided additional flexibility for staff.
Users were migrated to Microsoft 365 to remove the single point of failure of their ageing onsite email server and implemented multi-factor authentication and single sign-on to improve security posture. The remaining servers were migrated to Azure, removing aged equipment and reducing the reliance on remote locations for key applications.
mcrIT also encouraged the Odyssey team to leverage the Microsoft collaboration tools like Sharepoint and Teams to support their clients through remote treatment sessions. These tools have also supported the 'One Odyssey' strategy, creating a common set of tools and procedures.
Odyssey House CEO Julie Babineau understood the impact to their users when implementing this ‘One Odyssey’ strategy, requiring significant organisational change management.
“Sharepoint is a game changer for us. Our staff can securely access shared records from one site in the morning, and update that record from a different site in the afternoon – all while collaborating with other team members in remote locations,’’ she said.
Recently, mcrIT also extended its relationship with the Australian Red Cross to roll out Cisco Meraki across all sites in metro and regional areas.
