Unified IT for a Retirement Home

“Before ADDER, we had four different vendors for phones, cameras, nurse call, and IT support. Every problem turned into a blame game.”

The Challenge

Sunrise Gardens, a 120-bed retirement home in the Greater Toronto Area, was managing four separate vendor relationships for their technology systems: a telecom provider for their VoIP phones, a separate company for CCTV cameras, a nurse call vendor, and an IT support contractor for desktops and servers. None of these systems were integrated, and none of the vendors communicated with each other.

When a problem occurred — a downed phone line, a camera offline, a nurse call panel not responding — staff had to identify which vendor was responsible before anyone could begin troubleshooting. Response times averaged over four hours for non-emergency issues.

What We Did

ADDER Technologies performed a full technology audit across all four systems over two days on-site. We identified overlapping infrastructure, aging hardware approaching end-of-life, and several configuration issues that had gone unresolved for years.

We proposed a phased consolidation:

• Phase 1 — Network foundation. We replaced aging switches and standardized the IP infrastructure so all systems could share a managed, monitored backbone. Network uptime is now tracked and reported monthly.
• Phase 2 — VoIP migration. The facility's legacy PBX was replaced with a Cloud PBX deployment on their existing internet connection. Extensions were mapped to nursing stations, administrative offices, and the main reception desk. Staff received half-day training on the new system.
• Phase 3 — Nurse call and CCTV integration. The nurse call system was re-cabled and configured to log call events to a central dashboard visible to charge nurses. CCTV cameras were consolidated under a single NVR with 30-day cloud backup, accessible remotely by management.
• Phase 4 — Ongoing managed IT. All four systems now fall under a single managed IT agreement. One call to ADDER covers everything.

The Outcome

Six months after consolidation, the Director of Operations reported that vendor-related escalations had dropped to zero. Response times for IT issues fell from an average of 4+ hours to under 90 minutes. Staff turnover related to technology frustration — a noted problem in their annual review — was no longer cited in exit interviews.

The facility also avoided a projected $28,000 hardware refresh cost by extending the life of compatible equipment through proper maintenance and monitoring.