Te Whatu Ora Southern

About the client

Te Whatu Ora Southern is responsible for delivering healthcare services in New Zealand’s lower South Island, and are driven by a desire to facilitate better health among their communities. They are part of the evolution of healthcare in New Zealand, as the country moves towards a unified national system.

Critical to the delivery of these healthcare and wellness services are the facilities within which they are offered. Te Whatu Ora Southern have been working with FMI software for nearly a decade, actively working towards improving their asset management maturity rating.

The opportunity

When Te Whatu Ora Southern initially implemented FMI software, it was solely for the purpose of logging work orders and managing maintenance works.

As the organisation started looking for better ways to serve their community, asset management became a focus. While maintenance works were running smoothly from a reactive perspective, the organisation wanted to shift towards a more preventive approach, to minimise service disruption.

The journey

For Te Whatu Ora Southern, the priority has always been facilitating better healthcare for the communities within which they operate. From a strategic point of view, asset management is critical to consistently delivering the services their communities rely upon.

Hugo Zaat, the Services Manager of Asset Management, is the driving force behind asset management at Te Whatu Ora Southern. His proclivity for data management being a significant advantage for the success of their asset management program. Since his appointment, the program has gained momentum.

“Asset management is all about taking a long-term view of everything - looking at when assets are going to fail, whether they should be refurbished or replaced, and planning for that” stated Hugo.

Delivering services crucial to their communities’ health and wellbeing, the organisation strives to minimise disruptions in the delivery of those services. “The goal is to be able to pre-empt failures and fix them before they become a problem,” said Hugo.

“Failing to engage in preventive maintenance means you’re not maintaining a consistent level of service from your assets, which can lead to breakdowns or delays. Delays in service delivery almost always mean frustration, but in healthcare, the consequences can be more serious.”

Reducing the risk of unexpected breakdowns in critical assets, required a shift from a reactive, to a preventive maintenance strategy. While a big shift in strategy, Te Whatu Ora Southern were already technically well equipped to make that shift within their FMI solution.

At its core, a preventive maintenance program relies heavily on data management. In leveraging FMI software, Hugo and his team could gather, access, and analyse the data necessary to make informed decisions.

“No matter who you are, where you are, or what you are trying to achieve, the better your data, the better your decisions. The more valid data we get, the more reporting we have and the better it will be.”

To facilitate improvements in data collection, Te Whatu Ora Southern is working towards a broader understanding of asset management, from grassroots to the executive level. As this knowledge spreads throughout the organisation, they enjoy greater compliance with data collection processes.

“You need to make it as easy as possible for people to use the system in the way you need it used. The easier it is to use, the better compliance you will have.” Hugo commented.

Regular communication with stakeholders, and equipping them with a complete understanding of asset management, is the secret to improving compliance with asset management processes and platforms.

Providing an easy-to-use, mobile-optimised solution that is easy for stakeholders to use has been, and will be into the future, a critical part of Te Whatu Ora Southern’s asset management program.

The FMI team is proud to be able to provide support in a collaborative, constructive relationship. Hugo remarked “we have always worked well with the FMI team; they’ve always been open with us and think outside the box when it comes to our systems and what we want to do.”

Looking to the future

To support their focus on improving service delivery to their community, Te Whatu Ora Southern have recently restructured their asset management function.

Hugo is now the Service Manager of Asset Management, and working towards developing a holistic, integrated approach to asset management throughout the organisation.

“The more valid data we get, the more reporting we will have and the better it will be. We need the right people, looking at the right assets, to provide the right data.”

For Hugo, the long-term horizon is full integration of asset management from a grassroots level. Getting all stakeholders involved in asset management is the end goal.

“We have always had reporting requirements, but there is always room for improvement. We want to maintain focus on continually improving processes and ways of doing things. There’s so much scope to improve data flow between services, it should be continually improved and iterated upon.”