RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Rapid implementation of Microsoft Teams in response to COVID-19: one acute healthcare organisation’s experience
JF BMJ Health & Care Informatics
JO BMJ Health Care Inform
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP e100209
DO 10.1136/bmjhci-2020-100209
VO 27
IS 3
A1 Jay Mehta
A1 Timothy Yates
A1 Penelope Smith
A1 Daisy Henderson
A1 Glenn Winteringham
A1 Aine Burns
YR 2020
UL http://informatics.bmj.com/content/27/3/e100209.abstract
AB Background COVID-19 presented significant challenges to healthcare organisations, which needed to rapidly remodel their services but were unable to allow staff to meet face to face to minimise infection risk. During this communication predicament, National Health Service (NHS) Digital announced the provision of Microsoft Teams, a digital communication and collaboration tool, which was implemented at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust within 2 weeks.Method Given the need to deploy at scale, rapidly and with minimal resource, an agile decentralised innovation management approach was used, empowering staff to be local implementors.Results Resulting use cases were highly original and varied, ranging from a COVID-19 Education Programme to coordination of oxygen demand. Analytics showed rapid and persistent adoption, surpassing 500 daily active users within 11 days. Usage continues to increase, consistent with a direct network effect.Conclusion These findings suggest a high demand for this format of communication and high willingness to adopt it. Further qualitative research into staff perceptions would be valuable to confirm this, and to assess the user experience.Overall, this has been a radical approach to digital implementation in healthcare, and has so far proved effective in delivering a cost minimal, rapid communication tool at scale in the midst of a global pandemic.