EPUT – a future-proof network focused on improving patient care

Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) provides community health, mental health, and learning disability services to support 3.2million people living across Luton and Bedfordshire, Essex, and Suffolk. The Trust employs over 6600 staff working across more than 200 sites in the east of England, as well as providing services in patients’ home and community settings. ITGL has worked in partnership with EPUT to support them in delivering their digital strategy, with a focus on providing staff with clinical tools required to continually improve patient care.

 

The Challenge

• EPUT wanted to utilise a greater number of connected devices and applications available to enhance patient care, but their existing wireless infrastructure was outdated. As a result, application performance was often sub-optimal.
• IT resource time was often taken up with troubleshooting. The EPUT IT team needed better visibility of their network so that any issues could be addressed quickly, with minimal impact on critical operations.
• Successful onboarding of new clinical tools was limited by poor Wi-Fi coverage, preventing EPUT staff from seeing the full benefits of the technological investment. EPUT wanted to drive greater adoption of clinical applications that would enhance both staff experience and patient care.

 

Outcomes

• Improved Wi-Fi coverage has encouraged increased adoption and onboarding of clinical apps and tools, encouraging greater collaboration amongst staff and enabling greater efficiency across the Trust.
• Upgrades to wireless controllers and optimisation of the network has reduced the potential for network downtime, providing more reliable access to clinical tools that access, monitor, and track patient data.
• Increased visibility of the network has empowered EPUT’s IT team with greater control, improved troubleshooting and simplified management of their network across multiple sites.
• Combining the functionality of the new upgraded controllers with EPUT’s existing Cisco DNA Center has maximised the value of their investment, providing better awareness of the usage behaviour and traffic across their networks that has in turn led to improved efficiency, security, and performance.
• The use of an Enterprise Agreement allows for flexible license management, a lower cost of ownership and improving the Trust’s control over licensing costs going forward.
• Onboarding, enablement, and training was provided by the ITGL team to enable EPUT staff to manage the solution accurately and efficiently.
• EPUT now has a flexible and future-proof network solution with technology that is fully compliant with current Wi-Fi standards, but also has the potential to support the adoption of future advances, such as Wi-Fi 6E Access points and beyond.

Overall, ITGL and EPUT have partnered successfully to upgrade the Trust’s wireless controllers and license wireless Access Points, within an Enterprise Agreement, to build a more reliable, scalable, and future-proof network. This will support EPUT as they drive to continuously improve staff and patient experience.

Services and Solutions

• Cisco DNA Advantage Enterprise Agreement
• Cisco 9800-40 Wireless LAN Controllers
• ITGL Professional Services and Project Management

 

“EPUT and ITGL teams worked in partnership to resolve any obstacles that arose to deliver a successful migration. ITGL provided full training as part of the solution provision to the EPUT project and BAU IT teams to ensure a smooth transition for support of the solution. Additional activities were undertaken as a ‘value add’ by ITGL’s Client Success Team, to ensure that EPUT reaped the benefits of its investment and new features”

David Lawrence MBCS, CISM

Associate Director of IT Technical Strategy and Projects/Information Security Manager