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The Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Trust (RSCH), UK, has completed a project with management consultancy The Change Management Group (CMG) to create a comprehensive IT strategy for the Trust. The strategy has formed a key component of the integrated business plan which the Trust was required to submit as part of its recent application for Foundation status.
The IT strategy was completed on time and budget and following approval by the board, the RSCH management team immediately started the first phase of strategy implementations.
Sue Lewis, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Nursing and Operations at Royal Surrey County Hospital, comments: “We’ve entered 2009 with our consultation process for Foundation status well underway and a set of IT development targets that will undoubtedly enable us to achieve our business goals.”
Working to an eight-week timescale, CMG worked closely with RSCH staff to document a comprehensive IT strategy that set out specific solutions for the Trust’s core application systems addressing areas from patient administration to radiology and pathology. CMG provided a short-list of options for all application systems areas. The strategy set out clear recommendations for the IT organisation and provided a practical roadmap for implementing the strategy, including three development phases based on an analysis of priorities, timescales, key dependencies, high-level resource estimates and the key delivery risks. It also addressed infrastructure requirements.
Sue Lewis says: “CMG recommended a programme of IT projects that will improve the day to day operations of the Trust and support the delivery of our business strategy, bringing benefits that will positively impact the patient experience for years to come. I was impressed with the professionalism of the CMG team, their ‘can do’ attitude and their willingness to accommodate our way of working in order to complete the job to time and budget.” She continues: “The Trust was impressed with the professionalism of CMG, the team’s immediate grasp of what the project entailed and the methodical way in which they proposed to carry out and complete the work to a very short timescale.”
Commenting on the project, Julia Cook, Managing Director, CMG says: “CMG approached this assignment thinking primarily about how it could improve the patient experience as well as improving operational efficiency. We focussed on all layers of the IT architecture but started with the requirements of patients and staff. We identified where technology could be leveraged to improve efficiency and the patient experience and also reviewed the IT architecture with rigour. Our team had rich systems knowledge from their work in the NHS and other sectors.”
