Published: 19 January 2022

Reading time: About 5 minutes

Today, Health Trusts face many challenges in managing their data such as ageing infrastructure, clinical data stored in the wrong place as well as reducing cost inefficiencies. Furthermore, the health sector needs to have the ability to digitise and migrate records, increase data security and intelligently migrate their data to Microsoft Office 365. So, how can the health sector overcome these challenges and how can Digital Transformation help? 

In our latest blog, AI’s CEO, Simon Cole, discusses what good looks like for Health Trusts when considering Digital Transformation projects. We also discuss how we work collaboratively with our Health partner Microsoft and discover how we’re helping Health Trusts across the UK with their digitisation and migration projects. 

 

Your data needs some TLC. It’s been living in that fileshare for at least, well, let’s just say, ‘far too long’. The infrastructure is ageing (and failing) fast, your hardworking staff are struggling to find, use and share the information you need to serve your patients well. 

And then, what about your data security and compliance? When you think of organisations like the ICO, standards like the GDPR, not to mention threats of information loss and ransomware, you need to take a deeper breath than usual. 

The reality is the technology and systems that have got us to this point are not the ones that are going to take us forward. 

The pandemic has taught us a lot about the need to transform our data and make the correct information accessible at the point of need instantly. However, our customers in Health have benefitted from two areas of transformation even before the pandemic happened. While different in nature, they yield the same modernising outcome, ticking all of the boxes from an information security, cyber security, compliance, and cloud-first perspective. 

First, let’s talk about the outcome as all roads lead to the same destination, Microsoft 365. We’ve been working with organisations to help them on their journey to M365 for many years. In fact, we were there to help the first UK health board make that transition enabling greater integration, flexibility and productivity.  

And deliver we did, and we continue to do so for many other Health Trusts, Boards and other organisations. 

 

Transitioning to the Cloud 

As we look to improve and transform care pathways, reducing wastage, inefficiency, and poor practice, building our digital practices on solid foundations is a prerequisite. Microsoft 365 provides the leading co-working platform, through Teams, underpinned by SharePoint as a secure, collaboration space with compliance and everything an organisation needs to take control of their information in the future. 

As you contemplate your journey to the cloud, the critical consideration is how you get there while maintaining the integrity of your data, ensuring that you eliminate wastage and inefficiency as part of the transformation. In addition, the need to comply with regulations is increasing, and ensuring that your transformation partner can identify and solve regulatory issues during transformation is critically important. 

Migration is typically not a straightforward process for many organisations coming from legacy platforms, especially if stakeholder engagement, programme management, data integrity, provability and security are important to you (spoiler – they should be!). 

Using our flagship AI.DATALIFT platform in conjunction with our highly skilled migration experts we provide the confidence and reassurance that organisations have needed, to quite literally migrate their data overnight with efficiency whilst maintaining seamless business continuity. We did it first for Health and continue to deliver flawlessly for organisations like you. 

But what if we’re still grappling with records and information that hasn’t quite hit the digital age yet? Take a seat, we’ve got you covered as well. 

 

Digitisation 

We don’t need to remind anyone of the challenges of maintaining and relying on legacy paper records. There has been a priority driver for many health trusts to get patient medical records digitised and made available online. This is commendable and a great outcome. However, there are still significant volumes of, primarily historical, ‘corporate’ records in HR, legal, finance, administration and many other places that still present significant challenges for organisations to control.  

Digital technologies are continuously evolving, and some sectors can be left behind in order to try and keep up. In particular, the healthcare sector developed a long term plan in 2019 to embrace technology focusing on digital transformation. Initiatives such as becoming a paperless industry backed by a £300m investment plan is today enabling both NHS staff and patients to benefit from the latest technologies and have full access to their full records.   

We have worked with Microsoft and ServiceGraphics (part of the Paragon Group) to deliver a first-class, repeatable paper digitisation process for 5 UK Health Trusts. The solution captures the paper records at source, digitises and migrates them into Microsoft 365, ensuring they are accessible, secure, governed from a compliance standpoint and most importantly made available for use. 

The ability to analyse all of the records for personal data and ensure that only records that should be retained are kept, whilst non-compliant records are defensibly removed, solves a very real challenge many organisations face today. 

You can find out how we’re supporting Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT) with their paper-light program on our website. 

Your data is important to you, and we want to ensure that you get the best outcomes for your digital transformation programmes that help you deliver the best service for your citizens and patients. 

For further information, contact us on info@automated-intelligence.com, we’d love you talk to you about how we can help you take control of your data.