Vcpi Earns Oaks Senior Living’s Trust To Lead Its Technical Future
Vcpi’s IT expertise and support enabled Oaks Senior Living to meet their expansion goal by tripling their number of community locations.
Executive Summary
Over the course of a three-year relationship, vcpi has been helping Oaks Senior Living grow their business by delivering a dependable, high-performing, and secure IT network environment. This is made possible across their entire community through specialized tools, people, processes, and unwavering commitment to site documentation and reference materials.
Vcpi supplies Oaks with real-time monitoring of their network by leveraging industry standard solutions coupled with vcpi’s in-house developed tools. These tools are empowering vcpi’s certified engineers to identify developing issues and unforeseen out of network problems in order to respond with rapid remediation procedures.
The following briefly explains the sequence of events that have built the vcpi–Oaks relationship over the past three years. Vcpi and Oaks’ concentration on uptime monitoring and dashboarding is the nerve center of how status is understood and communicated. An actual example of rapid diagnosis is presented as well.
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Remedying a Disjointed IT Infrastructure and Finding a Trusted Partner
In 2016, Oaks CEO Alex Salabarria, was looking to grow his family-owned and operated organization by developing additional locations across their service area to provide high quality care to more seniors. However, this was difficult for the Oaks leadership team because at this time they had managed their existing four locations with IT infrastructure support sourced from four different local providers.
Although the sites were functioning at an acceptable level under this arrangement Salabarria realized that having multiple providers in this space resulted in a lack of a cohesive IT structure discipline, support, and monitoring processes. These obstacles needed to be navigated to securely scale their business operations.
In his search for a solution to these IT discrepancies, Salabarria discovered vcpi. Not only did Salabarria see a match between Oaks’ needs and vcpi’s capabilities, but he also sensed a cultural fit that he believed was necessary to forge a lasting bond. Both companies are dedicated to serving the needs of seniors and value hard work ethic and honest communication, as well as an employee-first management style. This prompted Salabarria to ultimately select vcpi to design and implement the future of Oaks IT infrastructure that would continually support his plans for securely scaling the business.
In-Depth IT Assessments
Starting with an IT assessment at each Oaks location, vcpi’s team captured the technical specifications required and the needs of the various stakeholders.
The comprehensive assessment process and site reviews resulted in recommendations including: Networks, Applications, Endpoint Devices, Identity Access Management & User Administration, Security, Service Desk, Licensing, Disaster Recovery, and more. In line with the information gained in this process vcpi prepared a detailed project plan that included budgets and schedules. Salabarria and the Oaks team implemented all of vcpi’s recommendations and even integrated vcpi’s IT assessment process into their organization as the gold standard.
Vcpi’s IT Rapid Problem Diagnosis and Resolution
In addition to supplying the initial assessment and recommendations, vcpi continuously assists Oaks in solving critical “whole system” problems—even those not under vcpi control—by providing accurate situational evaluations and guidance.
For example, a nurse call system network conflict threatened to bring Oaks’ entire system down. This serious situation caused Salabarria to write this initial email outlining the situation:
“Hi folks: Could you please read the below email from our Network Engineer at vcpi (IT Support)? We have recently begun upgrading all our Wi-Fi Networks to Meraki 5G systems in order to improve service for our residents and implement ATMOS Mobile and other improvements.
Now we are having serious issues with reception to our Spectralinks and iPod touches. They [vcpi] discovered why and it’s due to the channel band that ATMOS is using. Can we have a call today to discuss? Thanks! -Salabarria”
Chris Lisser, IT Operations & Network Engineering Manager at vcpi, was deployed to do an investigation and resolution for the organization. After hours of in-depth analysis and tuning with Oaks and their voice vendor Lisser found that there was significant wireless interference from their nurse call system.
The nurse call system was installed after Wi-Fi went in at Oaks’. This resulted in the units being installed right next to the wireless access points. The wireless nurse call system used some of the same wireless frequencies as the Wi-Fi system, which caused significant interference and created many issues.
With help from vcpi, both systems were adjusted so they would no longer negatively interact with each other. This situation was complex, but vcpi was able to resolve multiple Wi-Fi problems in order to get Oaks back up and running.
The Results of Working with Vcpi
Vcpi currently provides Oaks with a range of IT managed services including: 24x7x365 service desk, IT security, cloud based wireless networking (Meraki), and offsite data storage and backup.
“To achieve what we have, we need to have the support of certain vendor/partners such as vcpi. One of the best decisions we have made as a company was to partner with vcpi. The support and services vcpi provided us made the transition to new technology easier and brought success to our teams. From their service desk team, to managed cloud services, to the proactive support of our IT networks, vcpi enabled us to increase efficiencies on many levels and assured that our technology transitions were successful.” – Alex Salabarria CEO, Oaks Senior Living
Now, three years later, Oaks manages 10 communities and will add three more this year essentially tripling in size since forming a relationship with vcpi. The connection between vcpi and Oaks has been a key ingredient in enabling this growth and is regarded by Salabarria as a vital part of Oaks’ future.
“We look forward to our continued partnership and hope that we can continue to educate each other in our areas of expertise to help us continue to grow and provide the highest level of services to our residents and clients.” – Alex Salabarria, CEO, Oaks Senior Living
Because of the stability and support that vcpi delivered in IT processes Oaks was able to place its trust in vcpi largely due to vcpi’s ability to respect its responsibilities to clients, their senior residents, and families in providing an enduring IT foundation.
About vcpi – “You care for your residents, let us care for your IT”
Founded in 2000, vcpi is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wi and is privately held by Agility Holdings, LLC. The team at vcpi helps care providers best serve their employees, residents and patients by removing technology distractions with outsourced IT support rooted in the unique world of senior living. Vcpi offers a range of services focused on senior living organizations including managed cloud hosting, security & access management, US based 24/7 service desk, IT consulting, network management, and more. To learn more about vcpi, please visit vcpi.com.
About Oaks Senior Living –“Creating lifestyles that engage the mind and spirit”
This family owned and operated Oaks Senior Living has been faithfully providing senior living in Georgia since 1998. The Salabarria family develop and manage assisted living, memory care, and respite care communities where seniors can live with dignity and respect. Alex, his brothers and sisters together develop their assisted living community models and invite you to “Discover what a TRUE “family-operated” community will mean for you and your loved one.” To learn more about Oaks Senior Living, please visit oaksseniorliving.com.
