The Challenge
NSW Health has a large, complex, and diverse asset portfolio comprising land, buildings, infrastructure, plant and equipment.
Historically, NSW Health hospitals and health organisations had individual approaches to asset planning, creation, acquisition, operation, maintenance, replacement, and disposal.
To achieve consistency in approach, NSW Health needed to strengthen both ‘line of sight’ and business practices through the introduction of a common integrated solution capable of supporting a comprehensive range of specialist asset management functions.
The Plan
To provide asset management practitioners with the enabling technology and tools required to support and improve the operational, financial, and environmental performance of the NSW Health asset portfolio.
The solution would support the NSW Health Strategic Asset Management Plan and align to the whole-of-government Asset Management Policy for the NSW Public Service.
Ultimately, by helping to embed best practice asset management across NSW Health, the new solution would ensure assets and service operations are demonstrably aligned with NSW Health strategy and service mandate and consistently delivered to agreed service levels and standards.
The Outcome
eHealth partnered with the Ministry of Health to select a technology solution based on ‘best fit to requirements’ and deliver a ‘state-based build’ supporting standardised business processes.
AFM Online began rolling out in April 2013 and completed in June 2015. The solution is available to asset management practitioners across all NSW Health organisations for:
- Corporate Real Estate (property, lease and heritage management)
- Environmental Sustainability (energy, water, waste and emissions management)
- Facilities Management (strategic facility planning and space management)
- Operations and Maintenance (infrastructure, plant and equipment management)
- Biomedical Engineering (medical device management)
The solution is an enabler for asset management best practice and is foundation component of the NSW Health asset management framework.
Driving mobility with
AFM Mobile
In 2016 work commenced to extend AFM Online to the mobile workforce, with the aim of enabling asset management practitioners in the field to manage job requests, work tasks and assets via a mobile device.
Traditional paper-based work orders meant technicians couldn’t receive updates in the field. Travel time returning to base, coupled with administration overheads meant less time spent on actual asset maintenance.
NSW Health required a mobility solution to eliminate these challenges, allowing for real-time data capture on the go, immediate assignment of work and improved data accuracy.
By connecting the field to the office, the ‘AFM Mobile’ app has increased visibility and efficiency, streamlined processes and assisted decision-making across key aspects of operations and maintenance.
AFM Mobile seamlessly integrates with AFM Online and was launched in 2018.
The Benefits
NSW Health asset management practitioners can:
- have a consistent view of their asset portfolio
- have increased visibility and control over how they manage their assets and deliver their services
- leverage industry best practice standards and processes
- better monitor asset utilisation, condition, and performance
- identify risks and opportunities to inform and prioritise capital investment to reduce the capital costs of investing in the asset base and operating the assets
- have improved data and analytics for evidence-based decision-making and reporting
- improve the regulatory performance of the organisation.
Asset management practitioners in the field can:
- view, capture, maintain and upload relevant data and content at point of need
- access simplified user interface that streamlines request, work task, and asset processes
- use interactive maps for directions and wayfinding between work locations
- use their device’s camera for image capture and retrieval of asset information by scanning Bar/QR code
- conduct asset surveys and condition assessments to build and maintain accurate asset registers
- use app on iOS or Android devices, functioning in both online and offline mode.
NSW Health benefits from a:
- consistent, state-wide approach to asset and facilities management
- single source of truth for asset and facilities information
- secure system that can support local asset management service arrangements
- complete, life cycle view of the NSW Health asset portfolio
- improved alignment with organisational objectives and governance of how investments are identified, managed, and prioritised to support safe, sustainable, and high-quality care for NSW.