NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde: treating patient care with technology

Yorkhill is Scotland’s leading children’s hospital. The people there needed a network that could handle a variety of medical applications, streamline functions and deliver new and advanced care programmes. And that’s exactly what we provided.

Years of expansion and change at Yorkhill had left behind a piecemeal set up that was running applications slowly. More concerning was its inability to run new eHealth solutions, such as telemedicine.

The NHS had invested heavily in the network infrastructure at Yorkhill, but its complexities were making it very inefficient. Change was required, but understandably, it had to happen in a very precise, skilled way so it didn’t affect patient care.

We proposed – and went on to install – an advanced and scalable network solution, a new LAN. (Local Area Network). One that would meet tomorrow’s needs as much as today’s. This low-maintenance system also meant less disruption to hospital services in the long term, and less unnecessary troubleshooting for the IT staff.

Disruption at the children’s hospital obviously had to be kept to a minimum. This applied to any future changes as much as to the initial installation.

Through careful planning and the close relationship between our team and staff at Yorkhill, we were able to roll the project out on schedule. In fact, the whole thing was completed within four months. And all pretty much hassle-free for the hospital which meant we didn’t impact that all-important patient care.

“The installation was completely hassle-free. We’re now starting to reap the benefits of the solution by adding applications that were impossible to run across our old network.” said Calum Morrison, Network Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde.

Yorkhill now has a new LAN (Local Area Network). It’s a highly resilient solution to the network problems present before we stepped in. Staff can now access the network from patient’s bedsides or desktop terminals. As the hospital grows and changes, the network has been designed to do so too.

We ensured that network management was remote, so staff can make network changes and upgrades without disrupting patients and families. Our consultants created a complete set of network user guide documents to help staff out too.

The whole project has been successfully and easily integrated, at no extra cost, into the wider NHS GG&C Metropolitan Network. So everything can now be managed from the new Health Information and Technology (HI&T) headquarters in Paisley. Which means everyone benefits from a much bigger picture – and cost savings too.

The extra speed and capacity upgrade has brought a wealth of positive change to the hospital. Perhaps the biggest of which is electronic healthcare. Staff can now use a range of eHealth solutions. One example is Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS). This allows patient images, mainly x-rays, to be viewed instantly on any hospital terminal.

To help integrate children’s services in the area, Yorkhill now also shares patient records with external organisations such as child support groups and schools thanks to our technology.