Expects to use iPad minis to collect data for CQUIN targets while developing 'paperless' project

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is planning to trial mobile working technology on iPad minis before rolling it out to all 30 wards across the trust. The devices will be used to collect the data for the Department of Health's Commissioning for Quality and Innovation Payment Framework (CQUIN).  CQUIN, introduced in 2009, links a proportion of English healthcare providers' income to the achievement of local quality improvement goals. WWL is due to develop approximately 30 apps, with the first three in advanced stages of development. The apps are being developed using technology developed by specialist software provider NDL.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh trials rival devices ahead of £24,000 order
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is running a pilot using both Samsung Galaxy Android Tabs and Apple iPad Minis before it decides on one operating system and spends £24,000 rolling out devices across the Trust. WWL plan to use the devices in all wards across the Trust to collect patient data that is used for the Department of Health’s Commissioning for Quality and Innovation Payment Framework (CQUIN). Introduced in 2009, CQUIN makes a proportion of the healthcare providers’ income conditional on demonstrating improvement and innovation in areas of care specified by local commissioning groups. “Last year these CQUIN targets were worth a massive £5.2 million to the Trust. It’s quite considerable,” WWL’s project manager, Jamie King, told Computerworld UK. 

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) in Northwest England is using mobile devices to collect the data for the Department of Health’s Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) payment framework.

The Trust is among the first to use mobile working for this purpose and plans to complete the project using technology developed by specialist software provider NDL, which currently works with around 70 NHS Trusts.  

Healthcare organisations are embracing mobile working like never before, but the issue around network coverage is causing concern. A new study from software company NDL showed projects to test out the validity of mobile working were moving from pilot to full roll-out, with 40% now involving more than 250 staff and 20% now used by over 500 employees.
 

Users on the schemes also celebrated the effects mobile working had had, with 73% citing "increased efficiency" and 70% also naming "reduced administration" and "improved service delivery" as benefits. However, the most common failure of mobile projects was network quality. Half of the users said it was an issue, with 52% saying mobile networks were either “not fit for purpose” or “patchy.” Last year, this was cited by fewer users – 49%.

Council staff spend hours re-typing information from one form to another. When will integration be a priority for IT teams?

For more than half a decade councils have been trying to save money by using technology to cut the cost of communicating with citizens. And there are big savings to be made: according to research by Socitm, a face-to-face meeting costs £8.26, a telephone call £2.83, while using a website costs a council just 15p a visit.

The idea for local government, much trumpeted by the former Labour administration, was to save huge sums by dealing with residents through a central contact point – ideally online.

The benefits are well understood by IT managers, but our interviews with council staff suggest that there are still huge frustrations with the concept of "channel shift", the technical term for encouraging citizens to deal with their local authority using digital tools.

With local authority budgets under pressure like never before, councils across the country are trying to balance the books while protecting front line services. Consequently 'efficiency savings' are at the top of the agenda and, as with many challenges in complex organisations, IT is being looked at as both a source and a potential solution to the problem.

Figures from research conducted by software house NDL, which provides integration technology to around a third of local councils, revealed that in 2011, 72% of councils were still rekeying data with 38% rekeying over 60%, a process which uses a significant amount of resources as well as increasing the risk of errors in transcription. The use of multiple systems also means council staff need to be trained in multiple systems ' another time consuming and expensive process.

ALMO Your Homes Newcastle has invested in new software that will help overhaul its tenant concierge service

Going mobile isn't just about office workers their accessing emails on a mobile phone, it's about helping people who usually do their job within the community to access and update all the information they need wherever they happen to be.

This is exactly we want to do for our concierge service. It will make our staff more efficient, improve the service our customers receive and save us a huge amount of money – never a bad thing in the current climate.
 

A range of mobile apps is being introduced to enable NHS staff in the North West of England to operate remotely.

North Mersey Health Informatics Service (HIS) is introducing new ‘agile working practices’ driven by apps that will be viewable on a range of mobile devices including tablets and smartphones.

Using a remote system, which is also fully integrated with back office systems, will allow clinicians to view and update patient records automatically at the point of delivery, as well as obtain the latest medical advice and protocols.

Newcastle City Council's social housing company, Your Homes Newcastle (YHN), is to save millions of pounds in the next three years by overhauling its concierge IT systems, according to  head of IT Geoff Ellingham.

As part of the project, YHN will implement public sector solutions provider NDL's Awi MX platform, which uses data from multiple back-office systems and allows end users to access the data via a mobile application on their smartphone or tablet.
 
Ellingham said YHN was already working with NDL on a project to overhaul its back-office systems.

In preparation for new patient data collection rules, Northern Devon Healthcare Trust adopted a system that allowed non-technical employees to design their own mobile applications. From April this year, NHS trusts will be obliged to complete the Community Information Data Set (CIDS), which involves collecting 150 different data points on patients, including demographics, care records and referrals.  To support this without tying community nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists to their desks, or without hiring additional administrative staff, Northern Devon Healthcare Trust decided to develop a mobile application.

The Northern Devon Healthcare Trust has this month teamed up with specialist software developers Blue Diamond and NDL to roll out a mobile working project to involve around 800 community nurses and therapists. The Trust will make use both of NDL's universal integration technology (awiSX) and its mobile working software platform (awiMX) to launch the Department of Health Community Information Data Set (CIDS), a Department of Health directive for all community health providers, in April of 2012.

‘Going mobile’ is increasingly vaunted as a way for local authorities to deliver cost and efficiency savings while also improving frontline services. All well and good in theory, but how does an authority with no previous experience, go mobile? Here Oliver Waters, lead application developer at Bolton Council describes how his authority took the plunge.

Yorkshire software house NDL, which specialises in providing integration and mobile working technology to the public sector, has announced a total of 13 new contract wins across health, local government and housing in the last few months. The new wins mean that well over 50 healthcare organisations and a third of local authorities are now using NDL’s products.

Declan Grogan of NDL on why we need to start looking for commonalities and ways to stop ‘reinventing the wheel’ in public sector ICT provision. With budgets stretched and resources diverted to the front line, garnering investment for IT projects is going to be a political struggle - even if those projects will deliver significant cost and efficiency savings.

App will enable community nurses to file information for Department of Health's Community Information Data Set remotely

Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust is piloting mobile devices for its community care nurses and therapists to enable them to access files, capture data and update back office systems remotely.

The launch of the 14-day pilot, beginning on 7 February 2012, will see about 60 staff equipped with smartphones and tablets using Vodafone's 3G network. They will have access to policy and other documents held on the trust's database and, using an in-house app based on NDL software, will be able to update information about their visits in real time.

Northern Devon Healthcare Trust is rolling out a mobile working project that will allow around 800 nurses and therapists to access and update patient systems while they are on visits in the community.
 
The Trust will use universal integration technology and a mobile working software platform, awiMX, both from supplier NDL, to launch the Department of Health Community Information Data Set (CIDS), a Department of Health directive for all community health providers, from April this year.

Software house NDL, a specialist in providing integration and mobile working technology to the public sector, has secured three new contract wins with local authorities over the last two months The wins mean that over one third of all local councils are now using NDL’s software. The authorities include Chichester District Council, South Norfolk Council and Haringey Council.

The size and scope of mobile working projects expected to increase dramatically across local government in the next two to three years. This article looks at the benefits and barriers to its development.

The report on mobile working from NDL analyses the results of detailed interviews with 160 local authorities and housing associations. It shows that around 60% now have a line of business mobile working project underway, while a further fifth have projects in the planning stage.

A Yorkshire-based software firm is doing its bit to improve communication at the Ministry of Defence.

Wetherby-based NDL, which provides the public sector with mobile working technology, saw its revenues rise by 40 per cent in 2011 to £3.8m, despite the harsh economic climate.

The company, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, helps local councils, NHS Trusts and housing authorities to raise their game.

Should help community care workers cut down on desk-time

The Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust is piloting mobile devices for its community care nurses and therapists to enable them to access files, capture data and update back office systems remotely.

The launch of the 14-day pilot, beginning on 7 February 2012, will see about 60 staff equipped with smartphones and tablets using Vodafone's 3G network. They will have access to policy and other documents held on the trust's database and, using an in-house app based on NDL software, will be able to update information about their visits in real time.

A third of healthcare organisations questioned have gone mobile, with another third set to follow suit, research has found.

Mobile working in the healthcare sector is predicted to grow rapidly, thanks to mounting evidence from existing projects which suggests the working practice could help NHS Trusts deliver much needed cost and efficiency savings. The conclusion is drawn from research conducted by specialist software house NDL. The research, published in NDL’s Mobile Working Report, surveyed a total of 200 senior individuals working in healthcare, social housing or local government.

Specialist software house NDL is predicting rapid growth in public sector mobile working applications, driven by mounting evidence that the working practice can help deliver much needed cost and efficiency savings.  However, NDL, whose technology is used by a third of local authorities and around 50 Primary Care Trusts, believes that as other barriers are overcome, technological aspects of projects such as flexibility, integration and data network quality will come under increasing scrutiny.

Integration and mobile working specialist NDL is set to launch the latest version of its corporate mobile platform, awi^MX, at a series of special seminars across the UK next week. Alongside the launch, the half day seminars will also provide a practical introduction to mobile working along with real life case studies and an examination of NDL’s public sector Mobile Working Report.

Primarily aimed at local authorities, housing authorities and NHS Trusts, awi^MX version fivepromises to dramatically improve the flexibility and affordability of mobile working by allowing non-technical users to build and distribute business apps across three different mobile operating systems, including Android, and five different devices in less than half an hour.

 
NDL today announced that it was recognised in the BlackBerry® Alliance Program’s EMEA Innovation Awards 2010. Its awi^MX application was a finalist in the Driving Innovation in the Public Sector category.

NDL was amongst other finalists judged to have demonstrated excellence in building BlackBerry applications which transform the way that Public Sector organizations provide public services at the point of need, delivering multiple layers of efficiency, improved public visibility and better use of public data to drive better decision-making.

Judicious integration of appropriate systems coupled with extending the usability of existing technology are at the top of the NHS’s IT agenda to achieve the efficiencies demanded by Government. This is one of the main findings of Efficiencies and Cost Savings: the Role of Technology, a survey carried out by integration specialist NDL into attitudes, aspirations and progress among senior NHS IT executives. Other areas highlighted are the benefits of mobile working and unease about the Government’s Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) agenda.

Russell Hancock, Owner of Blue Diamond Internet Systems, has seen mobile from both sides of the fence: in the public and in the private sectors. Here he explains what he sees as the key differences, and also explains the approach he is taking to enable SMEs to embrace the advantages of mobile working.

What’s your background?
I’ve been a software developer for many years, initially in the public sector working on technology solutions to improve the way services were delivered to customers. But I decided to go out on my own and, four years ago, set up Blue Diamond.  Since then I’ve developed solutions for a number of local authorities and this has included using NDL’s awi product suite, in particular through implementing mobile working.

We’re now working in the commercial sector as well, predominantly with smaller businesses. These sorts of organisations generally don’t have the in-house staff or knowledge to manage and support the software that brings existing systems together. Their priority is to get the job done - and we help them do that.

Fundamentally we’re helping businesses make the most of the IT they have: either through synchronising existing software, creating new bespoke software, simplifying day-to-day IT administration or developing something as fundamental as an e-commerce website.