What was the issue

Improved bed utilisation ultimately means patients can get the treatment they need faster. With a lack of live data evidencing low occupancy, operational staff at Community Health Organisations across the Health Sector Executive (HSE) struggled to make daily decisions on patient movements.

Monthly data collation had become a chore, and when the compiled reports eventually got back to staff, it was out of date. Incohesive information delivered via email or excel caused frustration and reduced confidence in the quality of the data and reporting. A key challenge was to restore confidence in the benefits of technology and allow staff to do what they do best.

What we did

What was quickly established is that the hospitals required more support and effective lines of communication between staff and care providers. This led to the idea of a Bed App. A key principle of the app was to deliver an easy-to-use application that staff and care providers could easily adopt.

By using a personal and agile approach, 4OC’s digital team were able to get to the core of HSE’s bed utilisation. Staff were heavily engaged in the evolution of the functionality of the app and were supported by our experts in intuitive interface and usability design. Having run through several iterations, we got to an agreed design and the final version of the app was built.

Next, a training program was put in place and secure cloud-based access was granted. This allowed staff to use the platform from desktops, laptops or phones, saving valuable time and resources. Various cases were tested, and adoption rates were monitored. We embedded follow-ups into the plan to capture user insights, which would enable rapid development of additional functionality and iterative developments for reporting, if required.

What was the result

The app has proved very popular, and with word-of-mouth driving demand, it is now being rolled out across more locations. With data readily available from anywhere, leaders can access any number of Power BI Reports on any device. With fresh data being entered into the app daily, staff can now get an up-to-date bed position at the touch of a button. ​This information can then be shared with general hospitals who are able to direct patients to the hospitals that have increased bed availability, with the solution tracking an increase of in bed occupancy from 62.5% to 83.1% over a three-month period.

In the most recent update, the app is now being utilised in around 80 hospitals across four regions, tracking daily usage of more than 1,000 community hospital beds. The app also reports into acute hospitals to improve patient flow across the system. More than 100 staff have been trained on using the app. Given the usefulness of the app and the rapid uptake by HSE staff, the HSE has requested additional features be added. The new features facilitate a call to action, with activities and progress monitored, and accountability established.

Oh and in some FANTASTIC news, the work on this app has won a top award within the HSE. It picked up the ‘Engaging a Digital Solution to provide a Better Service’ award in the HSE’s Health Service Excellence awards. Yay!

The Challenge

ForHousing, who own and manage over 24,000 high-quality homes across the North-West of England, had some reported cases of damp that needed urgently addressing.

There was an existing task force working on them, but with a risk of escalation, extra urgency and a renewed focus on delivery were needed.

The Response

Based on agile methodology principles but tailored to ForHousing’s needs, 4OC put in place a series of Improvement Cycles to bring about the changes required.

This approach allowed local, small-scale changes to be delivered quickly and effectively, improving services immediately, while also capturing longer term requirements pertinent to the wider Transformation Programme.

Over six weeks, through a planned series of sessions, workshops and research assignments, ForHousing were able to get a clear baseline view of the customer experience  baseline as well as sight of numerous improvement opportunities (both short term and longer term).

Improvement Cycles are designed in a way that makes them accessible to all staff, while maintaining the rigour and structure of more traditional project management methods.

This approach embeds change capability throughout the organisation, utilising the knowledge and insight of operational staff and empowering them to own, shape and drive change.

Outputs and Insights

The damp problems were (i) identified, (ii) prioritised and (iii) a plan for resolving them was put in place. The result was that issues were immediately contained, which limited both disrepair claims and reputational damage and put ForHousing back in control of a potentially spiralling situation.

Many improvements were made during the Improvement Cycle including:

• Prioritisation of damp reports now based on a holistic view of the issue, the property history and customer circumstances
• Neighbourhood Officer has single point of ownership linking existing support case with tracking of damp and disrepair issues
• Damp Sensors fitted in 100 homes where damp had been reported to pilot a proactive approach to identifying reoccurring issues
• Design and implementation of visible performance metrics on damp and disrepair
• Customer updated at every stage of the process via web notifications – customers have visibility of where their case is
• SLAs reduced to ensure all reports are inspected within 10 days, with work carried out and completed within 50 days
• Customer now plays a role in deciding if repair can be deemed ‘complete’
• Customer focussed training delivered for all involved staff, including contractors, encouraging them to look at the bigger picture when dealing with damp

Insights

The understanding, capability and confidence of the Improvement Cycle participants noticeably increased during the process, demonstrating that the approach is successful in building internal change capability.

All participants spoke positively about their experience, helping to create a positive story of change across the wider organisation.

To find out what we do in Housing please visit our Housing page

To find out what else we do in other sectors check out Our Work

The Challenge

One of the largest housing associations in the Midlands, Platform Housing Group currently has a portfolio of over 45,000 homes. The organisation has built more affordable homes in England in the past two years than any other social housing provider in the country. Keeping track of this vast portfolio is a significant challenge and one that lends itself to increased digitisation of all aspects of property management – from development to repairs to resident services.

In the area of Housing development, Platform has to keep track of progress on a host of different projects. This can be a cumbersome process – colleagues in central office regularly spend time chasing for updates and sign-offs or waiting for supporting documentation to arrive. What became evident is that the rapid creation of a digital process would create simplicity, enable transparency and deliver greater effectiveness.

 

The leadership at Platform knew that their internal technical expertise was already fully utilised in other areas, but they were determined to maintain the pace of their ongoing digital transformation. For this reason, they commissioned 4OC to provide some additional expert support.

The Response

4OC had previously supported the development of an innovative corporate strategy with the newly formed executive and leadership teams, and worked together to progress a series of implementation plans. This meant that we knew the client inside out and were able to easily identify high value processes that could be applied within the organisation, providing a solution that required no additional spend to run.

Firstly, we identified that Platform had complicated sign-off procedures for different categories of investment, so we got to work with co-designing and digitising Platform’s decision-making framework.

Implementing our Rapid Process Improvement (RPI) methodology, we used Platform’s existing Microsoft 365 packages to unlock free additional tools that could help streamline business functions. This meant that the IT department did not have to overhaul their existing operating systems, as Microsoft packages were already being hosted and licenses already paid for.

Using Power Apps within the Microsoft 365 package, we co-created a framework and digital pathway for Platform. They required project types to be categorised into development (buildings and asset management); non-development (non-building related, such as IT procurement); and disposal (when a site is taken off the books).

Once the category of a project was decided, for example, from that point the system could take over the process with the in-built knowledge of the relevant sign-off procedures required to achieve the next phase. If a project is accepted, it automatically progresses to the next stage of sign off. If it is rejected, it is directed to the appropriate pathway to follow.

This is an invaluable tool for all stakeholders. It enables employees on different projects to add notes and upload files and photos – making the process much more centralised and visible. As RPI utilises Microsoft Power Platform, including Power Apps and PowerBI (business insights), reporting is much more effective too. It provides Platform with key metrics, allowing the organisation greater control over budgets and timescales and thus enabling rapid strategic decision-making processes.

Outputs and Impact

Once we set up the framework, we created a testing area in the 4OC environment and ran checks on its functionality. When we were happy with the pathways created, and the business owners in Platform had checked the functionality, the app was transferred over to Platform’s environment to test.

We supported throughout the testing phase, fixing any glitches and supporting the team with queries so that we could leave the app behind in capable hands. With little to no coding required for RPI, it meant that employees were able to start using the app within a short timescale.

Platform now has a streamlined business system that enables decisions to be made around investments more efficiently. By hosting all information in one place, auditing decision making related to investment is also much easier.

If you want to speak to someone to understand if or how this could quickly help your organisation with a problem, contact john@the4oc.com.

The response

We engaged a total of 16 stakeholders, representing 7 services, through numerous structured interviews and workshops to gain an understanding of their view of the future of waste services and to gather their requirements. Following on from these engagements, we identified four customer service objectives and applied these to the Technology Requirements design to ensure the operational and customer service needs were aligned.  

An implementation plan was prepared and reviewed by the procurement team to ensure compliance and a cost summary looking at a high-level view of implementation costs over a ten-year period was produced. A roadmap was constructed to display visually the journey and implementation plan including key milestones and changes.

The outcome

The waste and recycling services were successfully transferred to the council (including the TUPE transfer of 150 frontline staff and management), supported by the new IT systems, which were implemented on time, on budget.