HSCN: The future of healthcare

Here’s your chance to catch up on Virgin Media Business’s session at the recent HSCN Summit.

Watch our experts, Public Sector Business Development Manager, Keith Smith, and Head of Public Services Network, Richard Barnes, discuss the unprecedented opportunity the Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) hands organisations to transform and thrive.

In ‘HSCN Explained: Don’t Lose the Plot’, Keith and Richard highlighted the positives that will come as we bid farewell to N3 and greet the potential presented by a new standards-based network. It’s one that promises cost effective, safe, reliable, flexible and efficient information sharing between health and social care organisations.

Richard Barnes set the scene using a specially commissioned survey of senior stakeholders across the healthcare marketplace, detailed in our recently published report, The Digital Healthcare Agenda: Challenges and Barriers in Healthcare.

The poll found 84% of organisations feel unprepared to embrace digital innovation because their current ICT infrastructure is holding them back. The main problem was a common one: “We found that finding budget for digital agenda investment is a key barrier,” said Richard.

Keith Smith went on to point out that, in all likelihood, HSCN will be cheaper than N3. In a healthcare landscape no longer dominated by one supplier, he cited savings to be made from competition driving down prices, together with regional collaborative networks.

“We don’t have pixie dust that will suddenly take out 20 to 30% of the price compared to your current N3 connection,” said Keith, “but you can leverage scale by using regional networks, some of which already exist. You can join a regional PSN network or establish your own by clubbing together with people and entities in your region.”

There was also considerable interest in how Virgin Media Business is uniquely placed to offer customers best value when it comes to upgrading systems to become HSCN compliant. While various competitors are taking a “rip and replace” approach, with Virgin Media Business that won’t be necessary.

Keith said, “We are uplifting our core products to make them HSCN compliant. Therefore, if you have a PSN connection you will have an HSCN-compliant connection as well. It also means if you have sufficient capacity with your pre-existing PSN connection, you probably don’t need a new HSCN connection at all. You can use what you already have.”

If that’s piqued your interest, don’t miss the highlights from Virgin Media Business at the HSCN Summit – they could help transform your organisation. 

If you think our portfolio of products could help your organisation, visit the dedicated Health and Social Care section of our website, or call us on 0808 159 0701.