Macquarie Telecom, part of Macquarie Telecom Group has signed a deal with WA aged care provider Royal Australian Air Force Association (Western Australia Division) Inc (RAAFA) to get digital- ready and address one of the key terms of reference of the planned Royal commission into aged care by enabling more residents to be cared for at home.

According to Craig Burkett, General Manager - Information, Communication & Technology, RAAFA, the organisation will leverage a mix of Macquarie’s services, including SD-WAN technology and cloud, to build a better network across all its sites, giving it a platform to add sensors, virtual reality and more to provide a higher level of aged care to its residents.

RAAFA operates six retirement villages comprising 1,420 living units and apartments, 19 assisted living units, 446 residential care places and 14 short stay accommodation units in Western Australia.

Macquarie Telecom has deployed SD-WAN at two of RAAFA’s “problem sites” whilst also providing fibre, point to point, cloud and managing the organisation’s router network to enable RAAFA to gradually introduce more home care digital services.

Where once staff access to security, CCTV monitoring and financial services at the Erskine and Albany sites was unreliable, the Macquarie technology has increased speeds by five- fold and reduced outages to zero, bringing them up to speed with other sites and giving  RAAFA a more intelligent network.

Luke Clifton, Group Executive, Macquarie Telecom says that RAAFA’s wider strategy with Macquarie to create a fast, robust and resilient network by leveraging modern technology coupled with cloud services, is vital for the organisation to deliver the increased home care technology services that ageing residents will require into the future.