T.A.M.S. | Case Study

Case Study: TAMS

Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service (TAMS) is an Aboriginal community-controlled health care service. Their vision is to provide the Aboriginal people of Tamworth, and the surrounding communities, with culturally appropriate and effective primary health care of the highest standard. TAMS operates in an industry which relies extensively upon complex applications to maintain patient records, very specific and legislated obligations for data security, and mandatory reporting and accuracy in billing.

The Challenge

While continuing to deliver a high standard of medical services to the Tamworth Aboriginal community, TAMS has to acclimate to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. They promptly needed to add telehealth services and consider remote working options.

Our Solutions

The Australian government’s decision to include Medicare bulk-billing for telehealth consultations, announced in March 2020, brought an overnight transformation to the delivery of medical consultations in the immediate COVID-19 climate and for the foreseeable future. These changes needed to be implemented fast, while taking the necessary care to ensure data integrity was not compromised, meeting both the needs of the community without compromising TAMS' RACGP accreditation standards.

Pre-Planning

Due to our prevalence within the healthcare services sector, we were able to identify the potential for COVID-19 related disruptions prior to any government enforced restrictions around social distancing and isolation. We provided TAMS with preparedness communications, including advice around technological measures which may need to be taken in the event of those restrictions so that we could begin working on a solution before it was needed.

Work from Home

Our experience and foresight allowed us to anticipate disruptions to the service TAMS provides, which also allowed us to discuss the potential for a work from home requirement. We were able to recommend a plan of action, outline the necessary requirements, and help TAMS feel confident in making that transition should they be required to do so.

Platform Migration

Prior to government enforced social distancing, we researched and provided recommendations around telehealth and remote diagnosis solutions. When the restrictive measures were announced, we assisted TAMS with the reconfiguration of their doctors technology setup to accommodate their chosen telehealth solution and ensured it’s interoperability with existing practice management, communication, and diagnosis systems.

The Results

With the guidance and support we provided, TAMS was able to prepare effectively for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and adjust to their new way of working with confidence. Despite the enormous surge of support requests in light of the pandemic, we were able to uphold our industry leading response and resolution times while maintaining the quality of our service. This allowed TAMS to focus on the changes they needed to implement to protect their staff and community without worrying about the technical challenges.

Client Growth

110%

Increase in support tickets, as T.A.M.S. has grown and they’ve depended more on us.

Constant Support

77%

of resolutions happened in the same day with an average 3.7 minute response time.

Work From Home

additional cost in getting T.A.M.S. remote work ready during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Building Trust

100%

of T.A.M.S. servers now managed by us, 84% increase in managed workstations since 2016.