Teams becomes virtual war-room

Teams Becomes Virtual War-Room

Case Studies | 9 July 2021

Teams Becomes Virtual War-Room

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, we recently helped Guy’s and St Thomas’, one of the largest critical care hospitals in London, deploy Microsoft Teams in just 94 hours.

This is now being used by their Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for mission-critical communications, for collaboration and for up-to-the-minute planning. It will ultimately help to ramp up their capacity by 700% – including staff, beds, and life-saving ventilators.

Learn more about our Healthcare Centre of Excellence

The Challenge

A Crisis Like No Other

In effect, Microsoft Teams has become their virtual war-room. It offers their Executive and clinical teams the power to communicate en-masse, at speed, and to plan and monitor resources minute-by-minute – all remotely and without risk of spreading the virus.

Within just 94 hours, the entire ICU expansion team was enabled on Teams. It has become a vital, centralised, crisis communications & planning tool for over 6,000 clinical and support staff. It is also helping their ICU team communicate securely with the outside world, including other acute trusts, GP surgeries and teams in Social Care.

Because Teams is available on all mobile devices, staff can now stay in constant contact while carrying on critical medical or planning tasks.

The Solution

Tracking and Monitoring Vital Resources via Microsoft Teams

Teams has provided the dynamic and agile collaboration and communications tool they needed.

Instead of disparate files and multiple conversations, files are shared, co-authored and structured within Teams. Conversations take place in context and in real time. This makes sure everyone is on-the-same-page, with less room for error. It will help the ICU team achieve key planning and operational tasks over the next few months. These include:

Ramping up capacity by 700% (from 50 beds to 400)
Tracking and monitoring vital resources such as beds and life-saving ventilators
Training staff drafted in from other areas or being re-enlisted from retirement (this is critical to support the influx of patients into critical care.)

This hospital is at the “front-line-of-the-frontline” and has been dealing with cases since the coronavirus first began. This is an incredible example of what can be achieved in a very short space of time when everyone pulls together. Not only by the incredible teams and staff within the NHS, but by us all.

Customer Quote

“

You have supported the Trust to deploy Microsoft Teams at a time where we are under unprecedented pressure due to COVID-19. Teams is allowing all of our staff to work and communicate more effectively at a time where personal contact is limited. Feedback on Microsoft Teams from all areas of the Trust has been positive and we look forward to leveraging the platform as it evolves in the future.

Gary McCallister

Chief Technology Officer, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

The Solution

Solution Overview

Phase 1 – Teams Rapid Response:

Crisis Use-Case Planning
Best-practice technical configuration
Governance & Data Sharing Set-Up
Structured Set-Up for Key Users (e.g. Planning, Training, Executive Communications)

Phase 2 – Follow up:

BAU Use Case Scenario Mapping including full planning, design, deployment, testing and training