Hamilton Eye

Building a vision for business success.

For Practice Manager Hayley Goodall, it became clear that Hamilton Eye Clinic needed centralised management for their I.T. infrastructure. As a company that could provide this management, while minimising cost and future proofing business, Hayley found that Think I.T. was an exceptional fit for Hamilton Eye Clinic’s needs.

If you live in the Waikato and have ever needed medical or surgical treatment for an eye condition, you’ve most likely spent time at the Hamilton Eye Clinic.

This specialist eye centre and eye surgery facility has been a fixture in the Waikato and Central North Island community for more than three decades, and in that time, has become the largest private provider of medical and surgical eye care in the region.

As such, the centre operates a professional, efficient service, with ten highly qualified ophthalmologists practicing on site, supported by an experienced team of medical assistants and administrators.

Together, the Hamilton Eye Clinic team treats a wide array of eye conditions, from cataracts and glaucoma to more complex conditions such as retinal detachments, medical laser treatments, and even eye removal when needed.

And yet, even for a business that has been so successful and become a leader in their field – the clinic team still needs to work hard every day to continue earning the trust of their customers and deliver the highest quality of service, day in and day out.

A key element in their ability to deliver this service lies in their IT systems.  It’s something that the clinic’s Practice Manager, Hayley Goodall, is aware of – and found to be a challenge when she took over the running of the clinic a year ago.   

A technology-driven business

“As a modern eye-treatment clinic, we are driven by technology,” says Goodall.

“The diagnostic and treatment procedures we provide rely on state-of-the-art equipment working at microscopic scales and generate massive amounts of data, so must operate with utmost precision, speed and reliability.”

Be it optical coherence tomography (OCT), electroretinography, fundus photography or intraocular lens implantation – all standard activities in the daily work of the clinic – the technology that handles such procedures needs to be underpinned by a robust IT system, says Goodall.

“All our equipment is linked to a variety of databases and CRM tools, which must work in sync and be backed up regularly. If they are not working efficiently together, we simply can’t provide our patients with the diagnoses and treatments they need.”   

Getting costs under control

Goodall says that when she took on the Practice Manager role at Hamilton Eye Clinic, she noticed immediately that the business’s IT costs had spiralled out of control.

“We now have all our IT systems managed under one monthly fee, which incorporates everything Think I.T. does for us. It’s central, streamlined and manageable.”

– Hayley Goodall, Practice Manager, Hamilton Eye Clinic

“The biggest problem we faced was a lack of consistent service. The different parts of our IT system were being managed by different providers, meaning costs were all over the place, and it was difficult to get a clear view of overall spending. Managing backups was also a nightmare.”

It was clear to Goodall that what Hamilton Eye Clinic needed was centralised management for their IT infrastructure. She found what she was looking for in managed IT services provider, Think I.T.

Solid planning enables a seamless transition.

From the beginning, Goodall says that what stood out about Think I.T. was their experience and efficiency.

“We had confidence from day one that Think I.T. understood our business. We knew they had managed IT infrastructures in the medical space before and they had a solid reputation in this area,” she says.

“Once we’d signed on to their Think Assured Managed Services plan, we simply gave them all the contacts for all our previous IT providers, and they put together a clear transition schedule. From there they managed the entire transition process, covering everything off and doing it seamlessly.”

Goodall says it is a testimony to the smoothness of the transition that there was zero downtime or disruption to the clinic’s services on Think I.T.’s planned switchover date.

“Literally no-one in the business noticed anything had changed! I give Think I.T. all the credit for doing that so well. They gave us timely, personal service and support throughout and got all the systems working together perfectly.”

– Hayley Goodall, Practice Manager, Hamilton Eye Clinic