Health and Human Services Key Contacts Directory
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is one of the largest Tasmanian Government departments employing over 8000 people. DHHS provides services at more the 300 sites across Tasmania.
Due to DHHS's size and distributed locations, identifying key contacts like divisional directors and branch managers can be challenging. DHHS's Corporate Communications Branch published a printed key contacts directory which was delivered throughout the organisation.
Acting Manager of the Corporate Communications Branch, Kathy Saurine, saw the opportunity to deliver the key contacts directory via the Department's internet and intranet sites to ensure currency and accuracy at all times.
Utilising the Government Directory Service
Having successfully tendered to develop the directory, Ionata embraced Kathy's idea of utilising the contact details DHHS already maintains within the Tasmanian Government Directory Service (TGDS) to produce the key contacts directory.
Ionata director Martin Anderson explains that using the TGDS significantly reduced the time and effort required to maintain the directory.
"All contact details, position titles and unit structures are drawn directly from the TGDS so there is no day to day intervention required to keep the directory up to date. Rather than creating a duplicate contact details repository we are successfully leveraging the processes that are already inplace to keep the TGDS up to date, making the directory practically maintenance free."
Martin says using an existing data source made a big difference to the way Ionata approached designing the directory.
"The primary concern was to build the directory so that it could accommodate whatever restructures happened within DHHS in the future. With that in mind the focus was on determining a set of rules for identifying key contacts that would hold true no matter how the organisational structure changed."
The right directory for the job
The Key Contacts Directory has been designed to be accessed via the DHHS internet and intranet sites. However, Martin explains that a printable version of the directory is also available.
"Although many people will make use of the directory via the internet there are some areas of the Health Department that still require a hard copy. "
"Rather than compromise the web directory, we integrated a PDF version of the directory which is specifically designed for printing."
Like the web directory, the PDF version of the directory is dynamic and always up to date.