Peak Insight steps up McKenzie Aged Care’s UC with Webex

Sam Deckert (Peak Insight)

Cisco partner Peak Insight has expanded aged care and retirement provider McKenzie Aged Care’s Cisco-based telephony system to incorporate a Webex video conferencing system.

After Peak Insight deployed the telephony system for the provider in 2019, McKenzie wanted to add video conferencing to its unified communication (UC) setup.

“We were looking for a video conferencing platform that was stable, reliable and secure and something that we could leverage with our existing investment in our telephony platform and that was Webex by Cisco,” said McKenzie Aged Care GM of information and communications technology Peter Corrigan.

“It’s really extended our telephony system to become a true unified communications platform.”

Peak Insight was chosen due to its work deploying McKenzie’s telephony upgrade, with the partner providing a hand this time in the product selection and implementation.

“Working with McKenzie Aged Care, we understood that they were looking to simplify the complexity of their existing on-premises video conferencing environment by moving to cloud infrastructure and a simplified vendor engagement, having a single vendor that could be relied upon to deliver all of their critical communications needs,” said Peak Insight founder and principal consultant Sam Deckert.

The extension of McKenzie’s telephony system included the uplifting of its project management capabilities to cut down on face-to-face meeting and emails, as well as creating spaces for employees to collaborate, communicate, coordinate and store documentation.

The COVID-19 pandemic made the case for video conferencing even stronger, as support staff were restricted from visiting aged care homes. This created an immediate need for the provider to coordinate with many stakeholders on crisis calls, talk to government health officials and establish COVID-safe protocols for its 17 homes across Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Now, staff can meet digitally from corporate-issued devices and are contactable over video, resulting in the expectation that its travel budget will be cut by two-thirds since meetings can take place online.

The Webex system is also being used for improving project manager practices, remote recruitment and onboarding, as well as the recording of e-learning content to train staff for upcoming system changes.

“During the pandemic, our portfolio of projects could have come to a grinding halt. Using Webex by Cisco enabled us to forge on,” McKenzie’s Group PMO manager Sandy Foote added. “It enabled us to communicate across the business quickly and to make better decisions together as a team.”