Delivering seamless IT support so a much-loved charity can concentrate on what it does best
All business relationships are important to us at Atom. But we have to be honest: some are just that little bit closer to our hearts.
“Since we first engaged with Atom in 2022, we’ve been delighted with the service the team have provided. With their help we’ve been able to update and modernise our IT infrastructure, increase resilience and develop a more reliable, integrated approach. Having an IT partner that is responsive to our needs and always happy to help is so important to a charity like ours.”
– Joan Stainsby, Executive Trustee, Zoe’s Place
As many people know, Zoe’s Place is a specialist baby hospice for those with life-limiting, life-threatening or complex conditions. A registered charity with a legion of donors and supporters in the community, the nurse-led teams at Zoe’s Place hospices around the country has a reputation for delivering tailored care and supporting children and their families to “live life to the fullest”.
And we are proud to say that Zoe’s Place was one of the first clients to come on board with Atom when we began trading in 2022. At that time, the charity’s senior team had identified the need to update the organisation’s IT systems, as they were reliant on on-site servers and legacy IT systems at that time.
Ensuring the reliability of critical systems is important in every industry, of course. But we can’t think of many (probably not any, in fact) where having reliable systems is more important than in an organisation where the welfare of very sick young people is at stake.
We understand that providing care for those in need and suffering from terminal illnesses is challenging enough without staff and volunteers having to wrestle with IT troubles. So, our brief when onboarding Zoe’s Place was clear: to ensure that IT services and solutions always run smoothly, so that staff can get on with their day-to-day activities.
For context, IT outages can easily lead to issues with ordering or checking a patient’s medication; hindering the documentation of patient notes and other critical paperwork; and much more.
The same goes for phone lines and connectivity, where the sign of a good service is one that the end users aren’t worrying about – they’re just using them.
The solution
Updating and modernising security software and streamlining systems was a top priority for the Zoe’s Place team. So, the first major project we undertook was to migrate them to the cloud to enhance security, improve efficiency and give the organisation greater flexibility.
Zoe’s Place now utilise both Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.
For a charity working in the healthcare sector, compliance is also a key consideration. That’s why we have looked to help them put the right framework in place to ensure that the security of both their own systems and also that of their suppliers are up to standard.
As Atom Technical Director, Leon Hughes, says,
“Handling sensitive data and medical records obviously means that Zoe’s Place need to take a proactive approach to avoiding any form of data breach. We have helped them to meet compliance criteria.
“Working with Zoe’s Place across all 4 of their sites we regularly visit to work on network refreshes and infrastructure projects. We’ve also worked to decommission Zoe’s Places old servers and dispose of those safely.”
In moving Zoe’s Place’s infrastructure to the cloud, users can access information any time and from anywhere – affording some staff greater ability to work on a hybrid or remote basis. Leon explains,
“The cloud infrastructure we have implemented has enabled Zoe’s Place to move its finance function into the cloud. There is no longer a reliance on on-site data, which would historically have left open the opportunity for a single point of failure in this area.”
He continues,
“First and foremost, we’re proud to deliver a reliable and robust service to the team at Zoe’s Place. We’ve worked hard to eradicate any of the areas we thought had the potential to cause downtime or connectivity issues.”
Delivering IT and security training also formed an important part of the work delivered by the Atom team. This is essential both in ensuring that organisational teams maximise the value in their IT solutions and also in helping to enhance security and mitigate business risks. This is particularly relevant in terms of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity – which is a critical consideration in a hospice environment.
Leon concludes,
“Thanks to our work with Zoe’s Place we’ve built a strong reputation in the charities sector for our IT provision and have engaged with a number of other charities as a result of recommendations from Zoe’s Place.”
Key deliverables at a glance:
- Migration to the cloud utilising both Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365
- Decommissioning of legacy on-site servers
- Ongoing IT servicedesk support
- Provision of connectivity services including managed phone lines and broadband.
- IT and security training
- Disaster recovery and business continuity planning enhancements
Ready to supercharge your IT services? From cybersecurity to efficiency, help is on the way. Get in touch with Atom today.
