Client story Insight Breathes Life into Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service’s Microsoft 365 Delivery
By Insight UK / 12 May 2022
By Insight UK / 12 May 2022
Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service (NHIS) provides information technology services and solutions to the NHS and healthcare community in the East Midlands. 150 staff provide ICT support to over 11,400 users across 800 sites. When it came to implementing Microsoft 365, expert support and some fresh thinking was required.
One of NHIS’s key roles is helping users understand and benefit from the new ways of working that technology offers.
In 2018, Microsoft® got together with NHS Digital and the NHS Transformation Directorate to deliver a solution that would give NHS organisations across the country access to Microsoft 365 digital tools. The result, N365, improves security and communication and reduces the administration overhead for NHS Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups, as well as Health Informatics Services like Nottinghamshire.
The adoption and change management programme called for over 11,400 end users from eight different organisations, already under enormous pressure to deliver healthcare services, to be upskilled to take advantage of the new technology.
The scale of such a significant programme was beyond the scope of NHIS at the time because it was also responsible for the technical deployment of N365. NHIS quickly recognised that juggling the technical dependencies of the transformation with business and end-user dependencies called for additional expert resource and skills.
“Insight helped us, and our customers and partners, adopt N365 and achieve the benefits of using this new technology. Levels of engagement varied across the different organisations and Insight’s senior adoption and change management consultants worked flexibly to ensure that evolving needs were met – becoming a key part of our team.”
Hannah Shaw, Project Implementation and Training Team Leader - Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service (NHIS)
Getting NHS clinical and admin teams to adopt the new technology was key to achieving the security, collaboration and productivity benefits that N365 would deliver.
Insight proposed and delivered a bespoke adoption and change management programme to optimise the benefits of N365 and enable NHS teams to focus on their main priorities rather than on technology.
Insight’s adoption and change management consultants first worked closely with NHIS to fully understand how the technical implementation, including timelines, licensing and any restrictions on applications and features, would impact the user experience.
Next, the different Information Governance teams were invited to explore N365 for any potential risk the organisations might be exposed to. This exercise led to a live ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ guide for NHS users. Finally, Insight hosted a board-level Kick Off workshop to secure essential executive sponsorship.
With the groundwork done, Insight could initiate a series of interactive workshops to establish the best way forward. These considered the diverse requirements and priorities of different teams and departments. This led to a collaborative community of Digital Champions across the eight NHS organisations. From these interactions, Insight’s experts went on to develop training content, including a handy FAQ library for NHS users.
Towards the end of the project, the pandemic hit and the focus for all healthcare organisations understandably changed. Clinicians especially had less time available to join workshops. Insight’s adoption and change management consultants responded in a flexible, supportive way by pivoting from live training demonstrations in virtual workshops, to bitesize, pre-recorded videos with optional drop-in sessions for follow-up Q&A.
The depth of expertise and Insight’s flexibility to adapt to achanging scenario means that NHIS now has an established, fully trained Digital Champions network that members of the wider organisation can call upon to answer any N365 queries.
The project also delivered a comprehensive FAQs library, specifically tailored to NHIS’s user needs and has given NHS teams a thorough understanding of the capabilities of N365 and the how the tools can improve their everyday working lives.
Thanks to the Insight solution, N365 is being used across the eight NHS organisations. It is proving its value through better communication, modern productivity tools and stronger security.
“We were impressed and hugely appreciative of the support given by NHIS and Insight to deliver this project. Our N365 champions described the additional drop-in Q&A sessions as a fantastic idea.”
Hannah Shaw, Project Implementation and Training Team Leader - Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service (NHIS)
Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service (NHIS) provides ICT support to healthcare service providers across the East Midlands. It needed to implement Microsoft 365 across eight different organisations.
NHIS chose Insight for this business transformation programme because of its thorough understanding of the Microsoft 365 suite and the impact on the NHS and the centralised NHS England tenant.
Nottinghamshire Health Informatics Service
150 people, 11,400 end users
Bespoke, flexible, adoption and change management
Huge complexity and scale during a global health crisis
