Why collaboration technology fails in healthcare (and how to get it right)

Turn the three most common healthcare collaboration challenges into wins

Speak to most staff in UK hospitals and they’ll say collaboration is important.

But ask them about the importance of telephony and they might let out a small groan.

Of course, as a tech enthusiast, I see the benefits in healthcare. But I’m also a realist. And the reality is that collaboration technology in the NHS can and does fail, particularly when it comes to legacy systems, or new technologies deployed without staff input.

When this happens, staff are reluctant to embrace future changes or feel hopeful about other tech investments. This creates a difficult environment for the digital team to navigate.

And quite often, you’ll end up feeling stuck in a Groundhog Day of legacy tech and dust-collecting investments that never met their full potential.

But the good news is, the reasons for a collaboration project failing are well-known. This makes it easy for us to predict hurdles early-on and prevent projects from meeting a sorry end.

So here, I’m going to list out the common reasons for failure and how your NHS Trust can avoid them.

Common reasons collaboration projects fail in NHS environment

1. Decision fatigue among staff

Collaboration projects should make it easier for staff to communicate. But sometimes, well-intended investments accidentally do the opposite by adding more device-types and extra channels into the mix.

Communication then ends up even more fragmented than before. And staff are forced to decide which channel to use, before they act. This isn’t time that can be afforded, especially in high-pressure hospital environments.

Remember if you’re adding, you’ll probably need to consolidate what’s existing to avoid confusion. Aiming for a few, clear channels of communication can improve interaction speeds and give staff confidence that they can reach who they need to, when they need to.

Softphones can be a really useful device for consolidating lines of communication. They allow staff to access channels via one mobile device, which can be carried on them. (Rather than staff being tethered to a landline or having to walk round with a tool belt of multiple comms devices.)

2. A communication gap between systems

You’ve bought the tech – great. And now it’s time to transition to a new system. It’s this interim period that can be particularly risky for telephony projects.

The transition won’t be an overnight change. So you’ll usually have old and new systems operating at the same time. However, problems quickly arise if users on the old system can’t talk to those on the new system.

When this interoperability falls short, users end up having to find work-arounds, quickly losing faith in the new tech. It becomes a cultural fail before it’s even had the chance to impress.

Trust mergers and Integrated Care Systems only amplify this problem. You’re dealing with multiple different cultures and systems, which need instantaneous cross-communication.

However, it’s possible to introduce new systems without stunting collaboration in the short term (and making a bad first impression).

Create a bridge between your old and new system, so communication can continue as normal, without any downtime. This creates the time and space for phased migrations – the ideal approach for busy hospital environments.

Think incremental system changes suited to individual department hours. And scope to fully resolve any teething issues in one phase, before moving on to the next.

The alternative, of course, is a migration in one fell swoop. This is seriously disruptive to clinical operations, and usually leaves IT teams with a laundry list of tweaks to make which racks up long time-to-resolves.

3. Cutting corners with switchboard

The switchboard is a brilliant litmus test for how well the processes around your collaboration project work.

If clinical staff are still frequently going via the switchboard to get to reach their contact point, something has gone wrong. Usually, the new collaboration tool doesn’t reflect how staff actually work. So staff have resorted back to old habits and workarounds.

The lesson here, is that your purchase has to be made on more than just product features (regardless of how impressive they are).

Find out how the different staff archetypes within your hospital work. And outline what you want your collaboration investment to specifically improve. (For example, response times, call handling, decision-making.) It’s important to look beyond the scope of the IT team.

How can your tech elevate these existing practices? If you need to make pivotal changes, how can you support staff sufficiently in that without disruption?

The right technology can certainly help you on achieving these goals, but it can’t promise you these outcomes without the behavioural component alongside.

If not, your switchboard will have even more calls. So, longer waiting times and a larger abandoned call rate.

Don’t worry, it can all go right!

I’ve outlined three of the most common areas of failure with collaboration projects above. But with all of them, there are solutions. And these should really be factored into every stage of your collaboration project: from planning and procurement, to design and deployment.

A good example of things going right is Barts Health NHS Trust. (Although resource-heavier than some other Trusts, it’s not an anomaly in its success).

The Barts team recently introduced a unified comms solution across its five hospital sites in London. The results benefitted staff and patients across the region.

• • 98% of connection costs have been cut.
  • Switchboard staff can work remotely and answer calls on behalf of other sites within the Trust.
  • Soft phone users increased by 300%, creating more flexible communication channels for clinical staff.
  • Systems were transitioned while maintaining 100% platform availability across core telephony services.
  • Automation has saved 5 days per month of manual admin work for switchboard managers, decreasing abandoned call rates and call wait times.

So, there you have it. Things can go wrong in collaboration. But they can also go incredibly well with the correct approach. (Barts handled a whopping 33.6 million calls in one year after implementing UC solution!)

So it’s not something to shy away from, especially if you’re planning to lean into NHS IT modernisation.

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