01732 759725 DIGITALISATION 40 How Riverbed is helping The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust save money and boost productivity through digital experience management unreliable, unstable and unable to run newer software versions or perform updates. These failings were adding to the IT team’s workload and costing clinicians 947 hours of lost productivity every quarter, with worrying implications for patient care. Jeffrey Wood, Deputy Director of ICT at The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, explains: ‘‘Alluvio Aternity from Riverbed is able to highlight where our real issues are. We’re now able to work on the areas that need improving and have a true understanding of the end-user experience. We’ve gained almost 700 hours quarterly in terms of productivity, which is around 28 days per month that we’re effectively giving back to clinicians for patient care.” Wood adds that on top of pinpointing exact problems, the IT team can now proactively fix issues before a clinician even notices something is wrong. “In January 2023, we had 1,308 open tickets with 629 overdue. By May 2023, with more actionable insights and automation, the IT team had 628 open tickets with zero overdue. We’ve greatly reduced service desk tickets, which results in an improved user experience and increased levels of productivity.” Optimising IT spend The Trust’s newfound visibility has given staff clear direction on where to spend money and enabled them to optimise hardware replacement based on performance rather than age, while the ability of the Trust’s IT team to deliver insight-driven automated remediations has helped resolve common device and user issues. ‘‘Aside from giving clinicians time back, Alluvio Aternity has given IT staff time back. Basic fixes can now be automated, which means my team can spend time on things that really matter,” says Wood. As well as improving PAHT’s own IT services, the Trust is using Aternity to improve the performance of solutions from third-party suppliers. For example, some applications were experiencing crashes and long hangs, and the Trust is now sharing real-time analytics and actionable insights with these application providers to rectify this. Aternity is also helping PAHT in its trials of Windows-based bio-mechanical equipment by showing how often current machines are being used, which gives staff the opportunity to make adjustments to equipment provision and test new technologies where they are needed most. A more sustainable Trust In addition, Aternity DEM is providing PAHT with environmental insights to promote sustainable IT practices. The IT team plans to extend Aternity to its Apple device estate to gather performance data and receive alerts when refresh policies are due. With its sustainability goals front-of-mind, PAHT has been able to use data to shrink its carbon footprint and cut its electricity bills by shutting down idle devices. Summing up the benefits, Wood says: “Our system for detecting issues is much more proactive and automated thanks to Riverbed’s Alluvio Aternity. With their comprehensive DEM solution, we now have access to the tools we need to not only detect but also resolve user issues much more quickly.” John Atkinson, Director Solutions Engineering, UK&I at Riverbed, adds: “We have enabled the Trust to have a single source of truth for its clinician experience, greatly improving the performance of their digital services, whilst simultaneously reducing their IT spend. We look forward to our future partnership with the Trust, helping them continue to deliver an optimal service for their patients, as they leverage unique insights from Riverbed’s Alluvio Unified Observability suite to drive improved healthcare outcomes and efficiency of service.” www.riverbed.com The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT) is looking forward to fiveyear cost savings of up to £3 million after implementing a Digital Experience Management (DEM) solution that provides real-time insight into problems with applications and devices and automated remediation. Projected savings are based on the benefits PAHT has seen since implementing the Alluvio Aternity solution from unified observability company Riverbed at its three hospitals in Harlow (The Princess Alexandra Hospital), Bishop’s Stortford (the Herts and Essex Hospital) and Epping (St Margaret’s Hospital). In its first year, the solution has delivered a 99% reduction in breaches of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) on service desk tickets and a 700-hour cut in time lost by clinicians every quarter due to blue screens on devices, problems with applications and slow-running PCs. PAHT, which employs 3,700 people and serves a population of 350,000 across West Essex and East Hertfordshire with a comprehensive range of general acute, outpatient and diagnostic services, decided to implement Riverbed’s Alluvio Aternity Digital Experience Management solution to identify and address the deficiencies in clinicians’ digital experience caused by the hospital’s outdated technology. Due to the age of hospital devices, many applications used by PAHT staff were legacy-based, which made them Experience is everything Jeffrey Wood
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