Technology Assessment and Strategic Roadmap

If your Senior Living community is looking to update your existing technology, or provide more technology services for your staff and residents, it’s important to understand your organization’s technological strengths and opportunities.

Knowing where your community has technology needs assists you in prioritizing what should be done first, as well as helps you determine what your most feasible long-term objectives should be.

As an MSP and long-term partner dedicated solely to Senior Living communities, Parasol Alliance starts every client relationship with a comprehensive technology assessment of your organization’s current environment to develop a three-year strategic technology roadmap aligned with your organization’s goals. This assessment and roadmap gives you an understanding of how your organization’s technology environment matches up against industry standards, as well as allows you to proactively execute on your IT initiatives.

Our vision is to transform technology culture in Senior Living by broadening the scope of what technology means and can do for your business. That means assessing and starting where you’re at today, and taking a proactive approach to executing on technology related projects from top to bottom to ensure your community is set up for long-term success. The technology assessment and strategic roadmap is the first step to get you there.

About Parasol Alliance’s Technology Assessment and Strategic Roadmap Process

Parasol’s technology assessment is designed to help organizations make the most out of their technology systems and provide a roadmap for technological transformation that is customized for each community that we work with. We believe that technology must support your overall strategic and business goals while being streamlined for your community. In addition to assessing your technology, we take a wide range of factors into account, such as your long-term community objectives, staff input, operational pain points, your current operations and IT infrastructure, as well as your current and future technology culture. At the end of an assessment, organizations can expect a full overview of their technology environment, recommendations for technology enhancements and a three-year roadmap they can use for both budgetary and planning purposes.

This assessment is a comprehensive overview of the entirety of your organization’s IT operations and infrastructure, providing you with a full understanding of your community’s technology ecosystem. The scope of research used for the plan breaks down as follows:

  • A collaborative review of your existing corporate strategic goals.
  • Onsite and virtual interviews with your key stakeholders.
  • A technology governance assessment.
  • A technology budgeting assessment.
  • An IT operation assessment, ranging from your service desk, documentation, risk management, purchasing, financial management, training and culture.
  • A comprehensive network infrastructure and operational assessment that covers everything from your enterprise network management and wireless networks to your organization’s critical onsite hardware and physical security infrastructure.
  • A full systems infrastructure and operational technology needs assessment, tracking your hardware, operating systems, anti-virus capabilities, file sharing, nurse call systems, archiving and more.
  • A business technology systems assessment, which reviews your current systems and impacted departments, including one-on-one interviews with department heads and key end-users. It also identifies high-level gaps in your business functionality as well as potential for optimization throughout your community.
  • An innovation section that provides awareness of the latest and greatest technologies in senior living for your awareness and consideration.

After Parasol Alliance’s thorough assessment process, we take the input from your key stakeholders to develop a three-year roadmap to help your organization have a steady and attainable long-term plan for the future. This action plan is accompanied by a scorecard which identifies how your organization is currently operating, and where there is room for improvement. Using this roadmap, your organization can effectively make changes where needed, and easily identify goals and targets to prioritize.

The scope of our three-year strategic roadmap is wide ranging and designed to ensure your organization has a clear view of not only its possibilities for the future, but also clear targets to hit against its current state. The roadmap includes a list of best practice high priority technology projects for your organization, as well as a more comprehensive list of medium and lower priority initiatives that are also achievable within the three-year time frame. It also categorizes each of the projects according to department, assigns a high level cost analysis and gives a summary of what each project will do to assist your business and technology goals.

The roadmap is organized by budget year, with each recommended project having a high-level cost analysis that can serve as  your organization’s technology budget. Informed by your technology assessment and your organization’s long-term objectives, the roadmap serves as a guiding beacon for your organization’s technology transformation.

Why Senior Living Communities Benefit From a Strategic Technology Plan

Many Senior Living communities face difficulties in implementing technology upgrades. Among budgeting issues, infrastructure limitations and lack of staffing, overhauling technology or adding new tech can seem like an insurmountable task. The largest barriers to technology adoption and implementation include:

  • Poor Wi-Fi bandwidth, capability and capacity
  • Physical infrastructure in  the community’s buildings
  • Prohibitive costs for implementation
  • Not knowing what we don’t know – best practices and innovation
  • Operational efficiency

Communities often struggle with understanding what technology is a priority, how to pay for it and having the resources to select, implement and manage systems of all types. In addition, they need guidance on utilizing those systems in the most effective manner.

An assessment and long-term technology plan that suits a community’s budget and goals can help to mitigate many of these factors by providing a holistic series of solutions. Expert evaluations from outside your organization can point out ideas that a community may not have had time to consider, provide routes for training employees and find ways around prohibitive costs from affecting implementation. Any organizational change needs to be thoughtful, and having a long-term series of initiatives can help your community get where it needs to go at a steady, measured pace, without disrupting your community’s operations.

About Parasol Alliance

Parasol Alliance is more than just a provider of managed IT services; we’re a partner for your organization’s long-term goals. Our focus is solely on ensuring that Senior Living communities can operate at their highest potential, and that their staff can focus on what matters most — assisting their community residents.

Our years of experience in delivering managed services and information technology to communities like yours has given us the knowledge to perform an in-depth technological assessment of your community and provide recommendations based on best practices. We pride ourselves in tailoring our services to your specific needs, and empowering your community with innovative technology solutions that can help you meet your business goals.

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