NSW Ambulance – Program Management and Asset Management

As one of the largest Ambulance services in the world, NSW Ambulance covers an area of 801,600 sqm and a population of 7.25 million people.

NSW Ambulance employs over 4,650 people and has an asset portfolio that includes a fleet of 1,500 vehicles, tens of thousands of medical equipment items, technology assets including a private mobile radio network and thousands of mobile and fixed IT assets, digital solutions, 226 ambulance stations, four control centres, one aeromedical control centre, the State Health Emergency Operations Centre, Education Centres, Headquarters, and sector offices.

Ontoit has been involved in several programs and projects for NSW Ambulance since 2016 including the following.

Technology Asset Strategy

As its Private Mobile Radio Network and communication technology approached its end of life, NSW Ambulance was required to undertake a review of its Technology Asset Strategy.

In 2016 we worked with key stakeholders within NSW Ambulance to develop an updated 10-year Technology Asset Strategy. The review provided insights on the risks NSW Ambulance was facing, and the opportunities and efficiencies available to them from evolving technology in voice and data communication. Greater insights were provided to NSW Ambulance on the impact and cost of joining the government mandated Critical Communication Enhancement Program (CCEP) being delivered by the NSW Telco Authority, and alternative approaches that could deliver cost-benefits and efficiencies.

NSW Ambulance implemented the recommendations and initiatives that were identified during the review, improving reliability and efficiency in communications as well as improving the safety of frontline staff through the use of duress functionality.

Radio Telecommunications Infrastructure Program

NSW Ambulance required a Project Management Office (PMO) for the delivery of the radio telecommunications program and assistance with a consolidated and complete project management framework.

We provided advisory services for the establishment of an Ambulance wide project management framework and a suite of PMO tools, processes and procedures to guide the initiation, planning, delivery and close out of projects within the Program. This also included the design of the PMO and the development of Business Cases (in the NSW Treasury format) to seek NSW Health funding,  procurement and commercial advisory to deliver better service management, efficiencies and cost savings.

All Business Cases needed to be fast-tracked to respond to the business criticality of the end of life technology including the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system and the Mobile Data Technology (MDT) to NSW Ambulance’s frontline services.

We also provided end to end specialist project management services for complex projects to address patient and paramedic life-safety risk. A selection of the key projects included:

• The deployment of new mobile data and duress technology for its fleet of 1500 ambulance vehicles based across regional, rural, and metropolitan areas of NSW together with the consolidation of the back-end infrastructure integrated with NSW Ambulance’s control centre technology to address and mitigate end of service life technology risks.
• The deployment of the new EMR solution across the Ambulance fleet integrated with the clinical information system and the patient healthcare record database to enable compliance with patient records management requirements.
• The deployment of the P25 Radio Network across Broken Hill and Far West of NSW to improve critical communication coverage for paramedics.
• The Long-Range Digital Radio (LRDR) network that involved the deployment of High Frequency LRDR Equipment into 100 NSW Ambulance Vehicles in the far western region of NSW, to provide improved coverage.

Capability Program for Operational Equipment

NSW Ambulance required a change management process to establish an enduring capability program to drive innovation, improve asset management and enhance existing asset and infrastructure governance arrangements.

We prepared a business case for the replacement of the organisation’s operational medical equipment. The capability program’s objective was to position NSW Ambulance from being focused on individual items of equipment, to presenting paramedic response options that delivered emergency response and pre-hospital care options to align to NSW Ambulance’s Service Agreement with NSW Health.

Our team assisted NSW Ambulance to define a capability program for its operational equipment. The capability program served to encourage innovation, strengthen existing governance arrangements, improve asset management, enhance asset and infrastructure governance arrangements, improve accountability, and reduce organisational risk.

Building Capital Works Program

Between January 2019 and August 2021, our team managed NSW Ambulance’s capital works program across the State including working collaboratively with Ambulance to establish capital works requirements, scoping of projects, budget management, project prioritisation management, developing recommendations, design management, procurement, contract management and hand over management of the projects.