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February 27, 2024

End-to-end digitalization of the daily routine at UKBB - with Microsoft 365 E5

The challenges faced by University Children’s Hospital Basel (UKBB) are daunting indeed: Rising cost pressure and a general shortage of specialist labor in healthcare create an acute need for more efficient processes and simplified communication structures. In response to this situation, UKBB decided to implement a ground-breaking digitalization strategy – and chose Microsoft as its strategic partner. “Zero trust” is the fundamental principle behind the hospital’s approach to IT. Essentially, this means that every service–be it in device management, Azure services or collaboration–is implemented only after it has been tested and subjected to a rigorous security assessment. Adherence to this principle ensures that all solutions and methodologies always comply with the strictest security requirements. As a result, the solutions from Microsoft are enabling the comprehensive modernization of the workplace, improving internal communication, and freeing up more time for hospital staff to devote to their patients.

University Childrens Hospital Basel UKBB

“Cooperating with Microsoft leaves the hospital ideally equipped for the digital future of medical care. UKBB is assuming a pioneering role in the Swiss hospital landscape.”

Sebastian Fernandez, Head of UKBB‘s ICT service provider, UKBB

UKBB – Where tradition meets innovation

 Owned jointly by the cantons of Basel-Stadt (the city proper) and Basel-Landschaft (the surrounding district), this venerable establishment was founded as the first children’s hospital on the Rhine in 1862. More than 160 years later, it boasts excellent medical personnel, leading-edge equipment and an infrastructure tailored perfectly to its young patients. Over 100,000 people are treated here every year as out-patients or in-patients. UKBB has a vision to digitalize the children’s hospital in the interests of patients and staff alike. Accordingly, it is systematically ramping up the digital and telemedicine services it provides to deliver holistic care to its patients at any time and in any place.

Fast, straightforward communication thanks to Microsoft Teams

While the hospital’s collaboration with Microsoft first began in 2017, the coronavirus crisis intensified the partnership. “At ICT, the hospital’s IT department, Microsoft Teams was already configured and in productive service, so we were able to quickly roll out solutions throughout the organization,” says Sebastian Fernandez, who heads the ICT unit. In a very short space of time, access was made available to more than 1,500 internal and external staff who were then immediately able to connect with each other, whether they were in the hospital or working remotely. Alongside corporate smartphones, one fixed Microsoft Surface Hub and two mobile ones were installed and ready to run without delay. In addition, every meeting room was fitted with a video and audio solution for Microsoft Teams, so that excellent-quality hybrid meetings could be held right from the outset. During the pandemic, Microsoft Teams was also used very heavily to deliver telemedicine. As such, it helped ensure that contact with patients was maintained even under such exceptional circumstances. UKBB thus found itself well prepared to weather the crisis and able to keep hospital operations running without difficulty in the service of its patients.

Automation saves time

After this period, the 15-person IT team naturally wanted to establish the digital tools introduced during corona as standard practice. But they were also keen to advance digitalization of the hospital’s wider operations with the aid of other Microsoft tools. In 2021, they therefore set about implementing the Microsoft Power Platform to enable modern apps that would increasingly automate routine tasks at the hospital.

“The Microsoft Power Platform gives us a powerful tool. We are not engineers, but we can still develop apps. Thanks to Microsoft, we can empower our people to create their own solutions. That is fantastic.”

Sebastian Fernandez, Head of UKBB‘s ICT service provider, UKBB

The Microsoft Power Platform is now being put to good use by a variety of departments: “We use Microsoft to build digital solutions that accelerate work processes to meet the various requirements presented to us by the different departments,” Fernandez says. “Microsoft has a toolbox that we can adapt on our own depending on what is needed.” At Human Resources, for example, the whole of the onboarding process has been digitalized. It now takes far less time and effort to create staff profiles, for example, so new recruits are much more quickly able to focus on what they are supposed to be doing. Forms too (to apply for vacation or submit a sick note, for example) are currently being transferred in their entirety to the digital space. The time saved by all these measures has  direct and positive impact on patient care, as well as raising employee satisfaction levels.

Cloud data – Readily accessible and reliably protected

Another major objective was to migrate as much data as possible to the cloud to give staff easy access from any location. Fernandez cites flexibility, stability and scalability as the key benefits provided by Microsoft’s cloud services, The IT department is now able to respond very quickly to emerging challenges and add or cancel cloud services on demand. Using SharePoint Online, for example, UKBB was thus able to build a user-friendly intranet. It is likewise difficult to overstate the importance of cloud storage on OneDrive, which does more than merely facilitate the rapid exchange of relevant data during the hospital routine: It also serves as an immensely valuable collaboration tool for the higher education side of the hospital’s activities – such as sharing research findings with other institutions. For Fernandez and his IT team, the guiding principle was always to deliver ease of use without losing sight of compliance, governance and security requirements. One aspect of this commitment involves storing relevant data in Switzerland.

“Security considerations in particular were an essential topic from the word go. In a healthcare setting, you are constantly exchanging highly sensitive data.”

Sebastian Fernandez, Head of UKBB‘s ICT service provider, UKBB

The various Microsoft security solutions – such as Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Sentinel – guarantee that all data is reliably protected. Having worked with an assortment of third parties in the past, UKBB now has Microsoft as a single provider whose solutions deliver the highest standard of security but are also easy for everyone to understand and work with. As Fernandez sees it, such excellent usability is a crucial advantage: “Implementing the Microsoft security solutions has done more than just save us money: The Microsoft ecosystem also enables us to provide IT security as a convenient and user-friendly service which staff do not really have to bother about too much.”

Attractive Microsoft Surface devices for staff and patients

The Microsoft Surface devices are very popular among staff and patients alike. The doctors particularly appreciate the user-friendly design and visual appeal of the devices – making this yet another area where UKBB can position itself as an attractive employer for highly trained experts. Behind the scenes, the IT team benefits from the Surface devices’ robust security, which is guaranteed in part by firmware specially developed by Microsoft and is always kept up to date with the Windows Update facility. Intune and Endpoint Manager make the devices so easy to administer that the IT team – with the support of Microsoft – was able to set everything up with little effort and at low cost. Fernandez says that demand is generally strong for Surface devices such as the Surface laptops and Surface Pro for mobile use, but also for the Surface Hubs for ad-hoc meetings.

Digital path to the future

Looking ahead, UKBB has no plans to stop using solutions from Microsoft. In the foreseeable future, Windows365 will replace the existing VDI solution to guarantee the necessary scalability and dynamism going forward. Another important project for the hospital is the use of the Dragon Medical One (DMO) speech recognition technology from Microsoft Nuance, which will simplify patient documentation and thereby ease the burden on doctors in their routine work. By no means least, the IT team is also paying ever closer attention to AI-supported tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, which will take working with the various Microsoft services to a completely new level. Staff training courses are to begin as soon as possible so that the healthcare sector too can benefit from the transformative power of artificial intelligence – and so that UKBB can consolidate its role as a digital pioneer in the hospital space.

“Cooperating with Microsoft leaves the hospital ideally equipped for the digital future of medical care. UKBB is assuming a pioneering role in the Swiss hospital landscape.”

Sebastian Fernandez, Head of UKBB‘s ICT service provider, UKBB

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