Case Studies

Grampians Health

A doctor wearing a white coat and with a stethescope draped over her shoulders speaks to a facilites manager wearing a grey blazer

About the client

Grampians Health provides hospital, aged care, specialist care and emergency services across Western Victoria. With campuses at Horsham, Dimboola, Edenhope, Stawell and Ballarat, their vision is to provide equitable healthcare closer to home for rural and regional communities.

Grampians Health works to provide an integrated model of care that always puts people first, ensuring that they are receiving personalised, compassionate care.

For Grampians Health, the effective management of assets and facilities is critical in delivering the best healthcare across the region. Over the past two and a half years, Grampians Health’s Horsham and Dimboola campuses have undertaken a major project to improve asset and planned maintenance strategies. During this time they have been working with the FMI team to improve data quality and process management.

The opportunity

From eliminating paper work requests, to building out an extensive planned maintenance schedule, Grampians Health Horsham and Dimboola had a vision to develop processes that supported more efficient ways of working.

The engineering team is responsible for a large number of assets, critical to delivery of care services. In the pursuit of ensuring these assets are delivered to the right place, and put to use as soon as possible, the team embarked on a major project to overhaul asset data and processes.

They also wanted to maximise return on effort for planned maintenance, streamlining efforts to where they’re needed most.

The journey

Ever pragmatic, the team at Grampians Health knew that the changes wouldn’t happen overnight. They knew that transforming their asset data and data management processes would be gradual.  

“It was very overwhelming when we started looking at all our data, you get caught wanting to fix every little thing as you notice it, but you can’t do that if you want to create sustainable change” says Grampians Health Horsham and Dimboola Asset and Fleet Administrator, Kym Jackman.

“We had to make the right changes to our processes to systematically improve asset data. We got a lot of support from the FMI team there, their knowledge in both facilities management and practical use of the software helped us get to where we are now”.

For Grampians Health Horsham and Dimboola, the first step was achieving a consistent and clear naming structure for assets. Alongside these naming conventions, were clear guidelines for asset categories, and associated planned maintenance requirements. With this approach, they started with the basics to support continual process development.

“As we cleaned up the data, everything got so much easier. Assets and expenditure are easier to report on, and we can make more informed decisions on asset repair or replacement. With the information now readily available, we can consider how old an asset is and it’s condition when deciding to repair or replace" says Kym.

Improvements in asset data and processes has also supported ensuring high value assets are put into use as soon as possible. As assets are received, they are classified and the planned maintenance schedule created, allowing for seamless integration of new assets.

“We’ve been able to streamline processes to reduce any duplication of information and effort, creating efficiencies across different departments. Before an asset even arrived, we can classify it within our system, name it, and map out the planned maintenance schedule” Kym said.

Evolving processes necessitated significant change management across the business. Gradual education, and support from the executive team has helped the team to achieve a high degree of compliance with new processes.

As reporting improves, the engineering team are further able to support the leadership team with timely, relevant data.

“It’s wonderful to be able to support the broader business with relevant information, so they can focus on doing what they need to do for the community. If we can help them out by pulling out a report, and can have confidence in the accuracy of the information, that’s the goal” stated Kym.

Looking to the future

For Grampians Health, the focus remains on incremental process improvements to further improve asset data. “We have come a long way in terms of our data and processes, but there’s always room for improvement. There’s no such thing as “done”, you always have areas that you can tweak to find further efficiencies” says Kym.

As the data continues to improve, the team is able to expand the use of that data.

Over the next year, the team are focussing on leveraging their data to streamline processes supporting essential safety measures, as well as reporting.

Download the PDF

If you like this story so much you'd like to share it with your friends, click the button below to access a take-home copy.

Ready to level up your organisation?

Schedule a free demo of FMI Works to discover how we can help you centralise and streamline your facilities management processes.

Arrow Icon right

or Speak to an Expert