Background
University Hospitals Birmingham is one of the largest teaching hospital trusts in England, operating four major hospitals, providing both general and specialist healthcare services. To enhance collaboration and productivity, whilst bolstering security, the IT department spearheaded a vital large-scale upgrade, transitioning from its legacy system to N365.
Delivered by their trusted partner Insight and the HealthTrust Europe framework (CommIT3 - Complete IT) to provide a simplified and compliant procurement process.
Challenge
One of the biggest challenges the Trust faced in modernising its IT infrastructure was that support for its legacy systems was ending, with no further extended security updates. This put it at risk from future cybersecurity attacks that could impact the data of 2.8m patients. Budget limitations added further pressure, necessitating a delicate balancing act between funding essential services and investing in vital IT infrastructure upgrades.
Compounding the issue was the prevalence of duplication across various sites and departments. Its legacy, on-premise Office 2010 system was creating inefficiencies in workflows and resource allocation. Perhaps most importantly however, it did not enable collaboration between teams.
“It was imperative to upgrade and strengthen our security to protect hospital data and streamline operations across the Trust. However, we didn’t just want a replacement of an aged office suite; it was about ensuring our people understood the power of what you can get from Microsoft N365, which Insight helped us to achieve.”
Hammond Reddie, Chief Technology Officer, University Hospitals Birmingham
“With around 27,000 members of staff, this migration was extremely complex. Insight’s support in delivering the change wasn’t just technical, it provided the training we needed to ensure everyone across the trust understood the value of the transition.”
Hammond Reddie, Chief Technology Officer, University Hospitals Birmingham
Solution
University Hospitals Birmingham recognised that better collaboration between departments would optimise patient care and enhance administrative processes. Insight delivered a complex, large-scale migration of the Trust’s legacy systems to N365 to simplify its IT estate and introduce a collaborative, modern way of working.
Insight migrated the Trust’s legacy, on-premise exchange email system to the N365 cloud-based Exchange Online service. This seamless migration involved the transfer of essential data, such as emails, contacts and appointments, from an on-premise server to the N365 environment. This provided a range of benefits such as increased scalability, a reduction in the number of duplicate systems and ease of management, as well as improved hospital-wide collaboration through the introduction of Teams, SharePoint andother Microsoft solutions.
Insight also implemented mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to bolster the Trust’s cybersecurity defences. By integrating Multifactor Authentication with privileged access management and conditional access systems, University Hospitals Birmingham fortified its security posture to protect against evolving threats, such as ransomware, ensuring it could navigate the evolving cybersecurity landscape with confidence.
In addition to delivering the technical solutions and expertise to seamlessly migrate from Office 2010 to Microsoft N365, Insight’s Adoption and Change Management team helped ensure this large scale change initiative provided the intended return on investment through extensive training and workshops, upskilling the team on the solutions provided through the migration.
Why Insight?
We chose Insight for their proven experience in digital transformation within the NHS. Insight’s collaborative approach, understanding of user needs, and focus on change management were key factors in ensuring successful adoption of new technologies. Insight’s expertise in Microsoft solutions aligned perfectly with our modernisation goals, providing a clear path towards improved efficiency, collaboration, and patient care.
Change can be difficult when implementing new technology and systems across a large organisation. Insight’s consultants ensured staff across the Trust were equipped with the right level of information, at the right stage, with the right support, ensuring business continuity and the successful adoption of the new N365 ways of working.
