Ship shape and Bristol fashion: UBHT makes further investments in Microsoft technologies
United Bristol Hospital Trust wants to become world class and sees IT as a means of meeting its objectives. The trust is investing in Microsoft communication and collaboration technologies to make it easier for staff to find and contact each other and to share information.
Ultimately, it expects its latest investments to streamline working processes, increase efficiency and improve patient care. Lyn Whitfield reports.
United Bristol Healthcare trust runs eight hospitals out of a mixture of old and new buildings that are spread across a precinct in the centre of the city. The geography is important, physically and psychologically.
“Staff tend to be very fond of the building they work in,” explains Graham Rich, who joined UBHT as chief operating officer in 2004 and became chief executive in October 2007.
“When we created our new divisional structure, we made sure that each directorate included more than one building. Now people at least think about one and a half buildings when they think about their workplace.”
Connecting people
UBHT is also turning to technology to connect its 7,000 staff. In spring 2007, it worked with Microsoft on a pilot that used Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 to help staff contact each other in real time, using a range of communications devices. "One of the reasons that we are interested in IT is that it can be used to make people feel part of one organisation."
It is now deploying the technology more widely. At the same time, it has decided to invest in a Microsoft SharePoint Server (MOSS) environment, with Microsoft SQL Server to archive content and track usage when this is needed for audit and clinical governance.
Initially, the MOSS environment will be used to create an “HR Web” and revamp UBHT’s intranet. But in the longer term, it will be used to give staff many new ways of finding, accessing and sharing information.
“One of the reasons that we are interested in IT is the way it can be used to make people feel part of one organisation,” says Dr Rich. “We need to get rid of the old homepage because it is messy and disorganised.
“We would like to create a homepage [within the MOSS environment] that delivers some consistent trust messaging, but which staff can also customise to some degree with the things they need to do.”
Excellent, could do better
Better communication and collaboration are vital for the trust, which hopes to achieve foundation status in 2008. In his first chief executive’s briefing, Dr Rich told staff while UBHT has excellent services as judged by the Healthcare Commission, “there is a lot to achieve before we are world class.”
“If you asked our patients, they would say our staff are great and the place is clean, but they spend a lot of time telling people the same things over and over again and waiting for things to happen,” he says. “So we need to get smarter about the way we deliver our services.
“This city also has good links, a booming economy and good universities. It should have excellent public services, and we should be setting the standard for those.” In this context, he says, the trust needs to “leverage” its assets to become more efficient and maximise its expertise in key areas, such as R&D. IT is one tool that will help to achieve these ambitions. "“We also need to get rid of some of our paper. We have two to three million records here; even though we have a destruction policy that involves moving stored records onto optical disk, it is easy to run out of space."
Solid foundations
UBHT has just put together a new IT strategy, which looks at how the trust can build on its existing IT investments, run them efficiently, and accommodate new deployments, including the applications due to be delivered by the National Programme for IT in the NHS.
“We have tried to build on the foundation of the IT that we have got, because there is lots of good stuff there,” says computer services manager Dave Oatway. “What we really need to do is tie it altogether.
“We also need to get rid of some of our paper. We have two to three million records here; even though we have a destruction policy that involves moving stored records onto optical disk, it is easy to run out of space. We also need to become paper light to improve patient safety and clinical governance.”
UBHT took a step in this direction last year, when it installed a picture archiving and communications (PACS) system. This was well received by staff; 700 of whom turned up to open days to see the new system and its capabilities before it was installed.
Better communications
The trust’s investment in Microsoft’s communications and collaboration technologies builds on these developments. “It is a way of maximising our use of other technologies,” says Mr Oatway. "Clinicians could use the system in tandem with PACS and video conferencing to review x-rays and other records in an efficient but secure way."
“For example, it [the communications project] utilises the wireless network we put in to support PACS. We are looking at using radio frequency identification (RFID) to track where are assets are. But we need to know where our staff are and find ways to make it easier to contact them.”
This is a major pre-occupation. Any one person working in one of UBHT’s hospitals is unlikely to know about the range of expertise available in its other hospitals. And staff can spend hours looking up phone numbers and trying to contact the colleagues they do know through paging, phone calls and email.
The pilot soon showed that Communications Server could improve the situation. More than 100 staff were given access through the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 client, which runs on personal computers, mobile devices and an Internet browser.
It included a “contacts list” that not only helped them to find colleagues, but showed whether they were busy or available to take a call or instant message. Clinicians could use the system in tandem with PACS and video conferencing to review x-rays and other records in an efficient but secure way.
“Now, we have moved off the beta version and we are starting to roll out to all our staff,” says Mr Oatway.
Better information sharing
Microsoft also created a proof of concept to show UBHT how MOSS could address some of its strategic issues. Communities were created that mirrored the structure of the trust and for groups of staff within it, such as junior doctors and nurses.
Document management and workflow tools were included to show how these could streamline working processes; for example, an improved ward admission procedure was demonstrated, using InfoPath forms that could be linked back into the trust’s existing systems.
“We have an intranet, but it is based on old technology and it is not really doing its job,” says Ben Harris, UBHT’s communications manager. “We started looking at replacing it and, in the process, we came across SharePoint. "We can import a lot of what we have already into the new system, but shape it and tailor it to the needs of UBHT."
“It will do what we wanted it to do, but we soon realised it would also do lots of things that we had not even thought about; like improving collaboration and work flows. It should help people to find documents and help us to track what is being done with them.”
“It folds back into lots of things that we have been talking about,” says Chris Berrington, systems development manager. “We can import a lot of what we have already into the new system, but shape it and tailor it to the needs of UBHT.
“It will encourage collaboration. It will be paper-lite. There will be less waste. There will be better control of who has access to data and what they can do with it. But what really attracted our attention is that people can use SharePoint with some pretty basic skills.
“If they want to use our [existing] intranet they have to come and be trained in its magic. Whereas if they know Word they can find and use a document in SharePoint, which removes a huge barrier to communication.”
The human touch
The trust is taking an “early adopter” approach to deploying its MOSS environment. The first development will be an “HR Web” that will give staff, and line-managers in particular, access to information about HR issues, plus commonly used forms and procedures.
“We have a bunch of policies on the intranet, but it’s pretty unwieldy,” says Mr Harris. “This will be much more interactive.” Meanwhile, the old intranet will be redeveloped.
“This is all about giving people some human communication through technology,” says Dr Rich. “That might sound odd. But if somebody is sitting in a little office being bombarded by emails from headquarters then of course they are going to feel alienated.
“If, instead, they can log into a good system, that delivers the trust’s messaging and moves them into using its processes, but also lets them do lots of things that they want to do, then they are going to feel better.”
Related Articles
Tags: collaboration, communication, foundation trust, HR Web, intranet, MOSS, NPfIT, Office Communications server, PACS, patient safety, records, RFID, SharePoint, SQL Server, UBHT, unified communications, wirelss