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In this Issue In Other News Events News GP Referral reduction pilot goes live in East of England Cloud2 integrate ESR into SharePoint HR portals Cloud2 launch Board Assurance solution Cloud2 blog Head in the clouds (tell us what you think) Twitter usage on the up in the NHS University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust develop Leave and Absence system in 4 weeks using InfoPath Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust eDischarge solution hits 25,000 letters sent. Let your friends know about the news and events... |
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Dear colleague Exciting times. Serious adverse weather (which explains why we missed last month's newsletter); financial and organisational disruption; a general clamour for iPads from some corners, pressure to deliver real savings soon and the rapid approach of the year end. In this newsletter we don't set out to comment on the politics or address all the challenges the NHS faces (weather, money, flu, reorganisation, uncertainty and so much more), but we do have a few more things to say about how valuable electronic forms can be to driving efficient processes and we have a lot to say about iPads and other slate computers. If you don't want to read about them we don't mind - really. If you Unsubscribe we won't take offence. If you would like to be included in our standard newsletter in future or want to know more we'll be delighted - drop us a line. You can follow us on Twitter now too. But we want to start with slates and tablets... Apple’s iPad is lovely. We aren't zealous Apple fans but we suffer occassional iPad cravings and we don’t really know why. Our first iPad experience was using Dr Shane Gordon’s shiny new one in June last year; within 2 minutes we were able to access our eDischarge form online, fill it in and submit it. Marvellous!
Apple are unlikely to show a great deal of interest in the NHS market – they are currently shipping more units a month than the entire NHS market potential. 
Whether for completing eForms or other uses, slate format computing is useful and attractive. Maybe even game changing. The launch at the end of December of a Windows-based slate computer to the UK health sector in the form of the Zoostorm SL8 offers some hope… Sold direct to the NHS by Cloud2 and a few other select partners, these devices can be dropped straight into NHS trusts with minimal effort or disruption. Pre-installed with Windows 7 Professional, they provide good performance and battery life, large (11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel) multi-touch screens, Wi-Fi, USB ports, solid state drives and a weight less than 1 kg, (see the full spec). The standard trust's applications will run without modification and existing management tools and infrastructure can be used. These devices are great for staff who need to be mobile, such as clinical ward staff, infection control teams, doctors and hands on managers. They are great for reviewing information, especially when talking with patients, staff or public (they aren’t intrusive like a laptop or screen). They also make an exciting and practical alternative to a pile of board and executive papers, especially when linked to a SharePoint site. And they aren’t nearly as expensive as you might think. Find out more here or get in touch for a hands-on demo. SNow we have some interesting devices, what are we to use them for: Capturing data – forms, forms and more forms
It has been said that the average NHS trust uses around 500 different forms, with at least as many business forms as clinical ones. Think about it – holiday requests, expenses, purchases, change of address, change of assignment… the list goes on. While some of these forms are already electronic, being embedded in the clinical systems used across the trust for example, so many more require ink and paper completion, followed by photocopying, internal mail envelopes, in-trays and all the other inefficiencies of distributing paper. Some more enlightened trusts may have created Microsoft Word or Excel versions and made these available on an intranet, so that they can be distributed by email (assuming they have been filled in appropriately). Going digital – how to create eForms 
When it comes to creating electronic forms, trusts have a few options:
InfoPath is Microsoft’s high-end tool for developing data entry forms and is designed so that business users can create their own forms with a little training. Or they can work with a forms developer to rapidly and interactively design the form, before allowing the technical folk to wire it up to data sources, workflows and back-end applications if needed. InfoPath is part of Microsoft Office, so NHS users are already fully licenced for it. The 2010 version comes in 2 parts: the sophisticated Designer and a simple to use Filler, either or both can be installed on end-users’ computers, according to their needs and skills. Using InfoPath it is possible to create forms very quickly and deploy them across organisations. It provides advanced layout controls, with the ability to show, hide and lock sections depending on entered data. Multiple ‘views’ of the same form allow large, multipart forms to be created that can be used at various stages of a sophisticated process rather than having several different paper copies that need starting and managing. It’s a much smarter way of doing things. So now you have some forms created how do you fill them out? In many ways the simplest and most elegant is to present the forms directly in a browser using Microsoft Forms Server (which comes as part of SharePoint Enterprise). This is simple, immediate and doesn’t require anything installing on users machines, however it requires trusts to have Enterprise Client Access Licences (ECALs) at about £37 per user if you haven't already got them. The user experience is equally simple in both the browser and InfoPath Filler and users shouldn’t require any training (though complex forms may require some, although help can also be built into the form as a view). We have built many forms for trusts over the last year. Clinical Pack
HR and Finance Pack
We can do integration to ESR too, which helps cut down on a significant amount of admin time. IT pack
We have learned how to minimise the number of custom workflows by using smart forms. We also know that any workflow is at least twice as complex as you think it is when first specifying a project. We have learned how to do very rapid forms creation by focusing on the visual appearance initially. Usually we can deliver a prototype form within 2 days. The Blackpool eDischarge project went live in 6 weeks! A national eForms library – wouldn’t that be good? Moving your forms to eForms offers great benefits, improving business and clinical processes, shortening the time to decisions and ensuring data is captured, validated and kept for subsequent analysis. There may even be some reduction as multiple forms are consolidated. However at the rate of 1 new form per month it would take a trust 40 years to go fully electronic. Wouldn’t it be better to have a central, national library of eForms, where trusts can download the forms (and associated library) they need, add their branding and be ready to use it in a few days; meanwhile they can share the forms they create for others to use? Perhaps with users ratings and other Amazon-like features to aid selection? Cloud2 are working on this - we have around 50 forms already built and are looking for more trusts to work with us as development partners to move this forward. If you would like to get involved, have an opinion or want to take advantage of such a library please let us know. |
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