We are very excited about implementing our FTTH project.  We have been working with HBC, plotting all of our homes on the installation map and determining the potential complications with each of them.  Some will be much easier to connect than others.  Dan Pecarina, HBC VP Technology Services, has been extremely helpful in this process.  We then prioritized our facilities to insure that the most important programs were installed first. 

HBC then began to work our project into their installation schedule.  If all goes according to the schedule we should start having our first FTTH connection within the next week and our “high priority” first 3 connections completed before Christmas!

At Home and Community Options we have been busy getting things ready for the install.  We have been experimenting with some different methods of using Outlook to manage many of our day-to-day program management and communication functions. We call this our Efile system.   As soon as our FTTH connection is made we will test some of the different file sharing techniques to determine which approach provides us with the most secure and efficient performance.  Then as new homes are brought into the FTTH network we will implement the Efile program in them.

We also have been working with the residents of one of our priority homes to prepare them to become a test site for our Remote Monitoring Program.  We met with the men and all the responsible people on their Interdisciplinary Team. This team would include people like guardians, Case Managers, HCO representative, work site representative and any other parties that would have input into the individuals care plan.  We reviewed the precautions that would need to taken in order for the men to be allowed to be home alone without a night staff on duty. 

I ordered the basic equipment we will need to set up a remote monitoring program in this home and we hope to have all the components installed by the second week of January.  Then we will begin testing the various protocols that we would need to be able to implement if the men were going to be cared for remotely.

We are very grateful for the Blandin Light Speed Initiative for this opportunity to enhance our program quality and efficiency by connecting all of our programs to a fiber network.

The Blandin Foundation is supporting four standout broadband programs through the Light Speed program. The program’s purpose is to stimulate the deployment of bandwidth intensive applications that connect local institutions to area resident’s home. This post comes from a Light Speed community leader.