Success Story: Spencer Private Hospitals integrates Microsoft Teams with Compucare 8

In July 2021, Spencer Private Hospitals went live with the Compucare 8 Microsoft Teams integration, their latest enhancement to the Compucare suite.

Spencer Private Hospitals is a Private Limited Company and a fully owned subsidiary of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. Based in Kent, they have a head office in Deal, and three hospital sites situated in Margate, Ashford and Canterbury. Each hospital boasts a multitude of specialities, modern facilities, and first-rate patient care. Their largest hospital in Margate consists of twenty-two en-suite bedrooms, five consulting rooms, and an endoscopy suite.

Compucare 8 is trusted across all the sites to manage their patient pathway effectively from start to finish. They first implemented Compucare 7 back in 2003, before upgrading to Compucare 8 in 2017. The hospital information system plays a significant influence on Spencer Private Hospitals’ ongoing digital strategy.

Last year healthcare settings across the UK had to quickly adapt their usual ways of working amidst the covid-19 pandemic. This encouraged many hospitals to consider new technology and virtual solutions to the restrictions that were in place. At this time, Spencer Private Hospitals were already looking into opportunities to reduce manual processes and how to progress their digital strategy, and they quickly understood the long-term benefits of integrating a virtual consultation solution.

Streets Heaver subsequently introduced a new integration with Microsoft’s leading video consultation software, Microsoft Teams, to help their clients quickly innovate into this valuable telehealth solution. Spencer Private Hospitals decided to implement the enhancement with their existing Compucare suite.

 

Bringing Patient & Staff Safety into the Digital Age

Alex Aucutt-Ford, Head of Information, Quality & Resilience at Spencer Private Hospitals, recounted the reasons for choosing to integrate Microsoft Teams with their existing Compucare 8 solution;

“The main goal at the time was to reduce footfall into the hospital because of COVID. We ultimately wanted to improve safety for the patients and staff alike.

And in the same breath, it would take the business forward into a digital age where we’re constantly thinking about the patient experience.” 

With Alex’s role at Spencer Hospitals being to innovate and streamline existing manual processes, this project ticked all the boxes for his vision of their digital strategy.

“It’s much more amenable for a patient to connect to an appointment over the phone, a laptop or tablet rather than having to attend hospital sites, take time off work, childcare, parking, commuting. It’s much more streamlined and has huge benefits for patients and SPH staff while not impacting on quality.”

The Microsoft Teams integration eliminates queuing, high risk waiting rooms and any associated travel. It can also improve patient satisfaction through more focussed consultations or meetings.

 

Empowering Healthcare Professionals with Microsoft Teams Virtual Consultations

Spencer Private Hospitals opted for the Microsoft Teams enhancement as it integrated directly into the relevant Compucare apps, allowing them to create invites and launch meetings from one central hub. The feature eliminated the need for an additional independent system, further enhanced their interoperability and removed the need for a standalone system.

The simplicity of Compucare 8’s interface made the new feature easy to implement:

“It’s simply a toggle button that our Customer Experience Team click when booking appointments.Then all of the invites get sent out electronically and patients can join via the Teams link.

It reduces data protection risks as we’re not having to rely on human intervention to set up that appointment for Teams. It gets done by Compucare behind the scenes, so to interface was always going to be the ultimate goal. What we didn’t want was to have a standalone system with higher risks and to increase the workloads of our Customer Experience Team.”

Endless Benefits of an Evolving Healthcare Strategy

Since Spencer Private Hospitals went live with the integration, Alex has been able to reflect on the successes of the Microsoft Teams feature across their sites. It has been a huge leap forward digitally, with the project showcasing their dedication to the digital strategy, as well as to patient and staff safety and quality.

The hospital’s Customer Experience Team have substantially streamlined their processes. Alex says he is introducing even more departments across the multiple sites to the new functionality, having already seen the advantages that they hadn’t initially considered the integration would benefit.

“We’re constantly looking at what services we can bring in line for virtual consultations, so for example, Physio was something that wasn’t initially considered. But actually, as part of the pathway, it proves really useful in that a face-to-face appointment may not be required but a virtual consultation could be utilised instead, with huge benefits.”

The Next Steps for Spencer Private Hospitals

Looking to the future, Alex has been ‘constantly flying the flag for the service’ in Spencer Private Hospitals, ensuring he is in communication with their Clinicians to onboard as many as possible and to highlight the benefits of virtual consultations.

He says that whilst the quality of care at Spencer is already impressive, they are always on the lookout for improving quality and increasing their rating of Good by the Care Quality Commission to Outstanding.

“There is an appetite for digital progression in the business and this project demonstrated where we’re going strategically.”

Alex tells us that the next step in their digital strategy will be to integrate the Compucare 8 Patient Portal, and given the success of this integration, he’s confident Spencer Private Hospitals will continue to grow and evolve with Compucare.

“The support from Streets Heaver have been really good and they’re always available for technical queries. They helped us a lot with the strategic planning for this project and assist when required in the raising of support tickets.”

Streets Heaver would like to thank Alex for taking the time to talk to us about Spencer Private Hospitals and their latest addition to Compucare 8. We are very excited to be involved in their continued digital transformation and look forward to many more years of a great partnership.