Part of Mid Cheshire Hospitals Foundation Trust: community connectivity challenges report
Hardware and software – requirements and approach
In addition to the requirements for the network connections for community staff, Mid Cheshire also faced a challenge about what hardware/software solutions were required for the organisation to provide an efficient service to its patients.
Extract from community business case (appendix A)
At the point the service transferred to CCICP the computer assets were transferred from East Cheshire NHS Trust to CCICP:
- 46% of desktop computers are either due or overdue for refresh in 2017/2018, based on a refresh every 5 years
- 96% of tablet computers are either due or overdue for refresh in 2017/2018, based on a refresh every 3 years
- of the 264 mobile phones in use, all are basic handsets (not smartphones)
The CCICP ICT project group engaged with 100 front line staff about how their current IT provision supports their mobile working needs and the following information was identified:
Staff identified that on a scale of 1 to 100 the degree to which the IT equipment currently deployed only supports mobile working was 33:100. This results in unnecessary trips back to the office.
Staff identified that if they were provided with improved mobile enabled IT services, they would save 68,976 miles per year by not having to return to base as often.
Staff identified that if they were provided with improved mobile enabled IT services they would save 7,355 hours per year through not having to return to base as often, allowing more time to make every contact count.
Due to the age of the devices currently deployed, unproductive time is spent resolving issues with the equipment. The distribution of modern IT services would reduce the time spent managing faults by 650 hours per year.
Engaging with staff
To address this, the first step was to engage with staff about what they needed access to, from where and to involve them in the review of devices. With help from CDW, we did several showcase sessions of devices, including staff from each area.
We developed a questionnaire that each member of staff needed to complete, so we could score each device based on staff feedback.
Following the showcase sessions, we took all the feedback and ranked the devices and reviewed all the comments.
Table of ranking of devices
| Ranking | Device | Device number in survey | Overall score (out of 5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Device A | 13 | 3.44 |
| 2 | Device B | 12 | 3.19 |
| 3 | Device C | 7 | 2.63 |
| 4 | Device D | 11 | 2.53 |
| 5 | Device E | 8 | 2.41 |
| 6 | Device F | 10 | 2.34 |
| 7 | Device G | 1 | 2.28 |
| 7 | Device H | 9 | 2.28 |
| 9 | Device I | 6 | 2.03 |
| 10 | Device J | 5 | 1.97 |
| 11 | Device K | 4 | 1.72 |
| 12 | Device L | 3 | 1.69 |
| 13 | Device M | 2 | 1.56 |
Conclusions
Overall, staff preferred laptops over tablet devices. The main reason for this was that they could access far more services from a laptop rather than a tablet device, which they previously had used.
Positive feedback was also received on the models where staff could have the flexibility of turning the device into a tablet if they required.
VMware on tablets was previously used by the staff in some instances. The feedback that was received from staff on that specific solution was negative, and included issues with screen resolution for certain applications, and the on-screen keyboard not being responsive and difficult to use on a virtual desktop.
The decision was taken following the feedback to procure laptop devices (with tablet switch functionality) to all community staff who were not based at a fixed desk. This would allow staff who roamed the maximum flexibility.
To safeguard the device replacement, which was previously not maintained by East Cheshire, Mid Cheshire switched to a lease model for the devices. This allowed a refresh of all the devices every 5 years, so the standards which were being implemented were maintained.
Last edited: 23 October 2024 12:35 pm