Hospitals, healthcare facilities and care homes throughout the EU are heavily investing in new technologies to reduce cost, increase efficiency and improve healthcare service to all patients. All technology comes with a unique set of challenges, and mobile devices are no different. Before rolling out handheld devices, tablets and laptops to staff, organisations must ensure they have proper management procedures in place to keep them fully charged, accessible and ready for use at all times. Otherwise broken and dead devices and lost charging cords lead to lost productivity, frustrating healthcare providers instead of making their jobs easier.
Learn about the device deployment challenges of three healthcare providers, and the charging and security solutions they chose to ease the burden on overworked staff while improving hygiene compliance and protecting patient confidentiality.
The Challenge: Lost Cables and Keys Means Losing Precious Time with Patients
The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust carries out nearly one million outpatient appointments, day case procedures and inpatient admissions annually. It’s no surprise that their nursing stations are bustling hubs of activity, which include the tasks involved with charging and storing staff mobile devices.
According to the WHO, despite an estimated 7.3 million nurses and midwives in the EU and over 310,000 qualified nursing staff in the NHS in England, this number is not adequate to meet current needs. The demand is only expected to rise with an ageing population. As pressure on nurses increases, there’s not a minute left in their days to search for missing cables to charge devices. There’s also no time to waste hunting down keys to cabinets where those devices are stored.
The Solution: Charge, Store and Secure Devices with Putnam Charging Stations
After researching secure charging solutions to deploy at nursing stations for their health care workers’ tablets and devices, The Trust decided on Putnam 16 and Putnam 8 charging stations. With 120 Putnams deployed, nurses can now dedicate more time to patients and less time to device management. They also take advantage of these benefits:
No keys! With an integrated mechanical combination lock, there are no keys to misplace. Plus, the charging station includes a master override key for administrators in case of forgotten combinations.
Save time. The Putnam cables stay in the station and can’t be removed easily, so no more wasting time on replacing broken or missing cords. Staff also reduce time away from vital day-to-day activities by quickly seeing if their devices are charging (red) or ready to use (green).
Itty bitty footprint. Limited room for a bulky charging station means Putnam’s small size is a big benefit. Easily mount the compact unit to the floor, wall or a desk to save even more space. Or, stack the charging stations with a pedestal and bracket for additional charging slots.
Bonus Solution: Putnam Charging Stations pair easily with UVone, the zero-touch, 360-degree disinfection for tablets, phones and mobile devices to a 5-log* kill in just 30 seconds. UVone reduces SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, by 99.99%*–which is 10x more effective than leading disinfecting wipes. UVone seamlessly integrates into any environment, such as outside of operating rooms, patient rooms, nursing stations, or any other location that is most convenient and visible for compliance.
UVone reduces SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, 10x more effectively than leading disinfecting wipes.
The Challenge: Laptops Fail While District Nurses Are on the Road
The Devon County Council and the NHS work together to ensure everyone across the county has equal access to health services. To best support their community’s health and wellbeing, district nurses and health care providers travel to patients’ homes, laptops and tablets in tow. When there’s a hardware or software failure, an IT staff member drives to their location to drop off a new device. This cumbersome process wastes at least two hours of IT staff member’s time per week.
The Solution: Automate Laptop Exchanges with FUYL Towers
The Council is currently setting up a FUYL Tower 5 in a centrally-located hospital so that when a nurse’s device breaks, it can quickly be swapped for a new one. FUYL Towers keep several devices charged, secure and connected in a location that can be accessed by onsite workers or nearby remote workers. When a nurse’s laptop or device fails, IT will simply send them to the locker to get a replacement.
The ROI on a FUYL Tower investment averages just 10-16 weeks.
By getting back the eight hours per month previously lost by IT staff driving to get to nurses back to their patients, the Tower should pay for itself within three months. In the future, The Council plans to save even more time by setting up four additional Towers so nurses can visit a location closest to them for replacement laptops.
Bonus Solution: The LocknCharge Cloud subscription allows admins to grant specific users access to individual bays or Towers with an RFID badge or assigned PIN code. With FUYL Towers, a manual process that once took two hours to complete will now take less than a minute!
FUYL Tower + Cloud shortens manual device replacement time from two hours to less than one minute.
The Challenge: Hospitals Must Keep Patient Information Safe
Erie County Medical Center has been a model of wellness in the Buffalo, New York community for over a Century, providing state-of-the-art care long before advanced medical procedures or prescription drugs. The Trauma Center deployed mobile device technology to improve patient care, eliminating paper processes, streamlining workflow and reducing costs. The IT team knew the deployment needed to include a solution to protect data and devices.
A single lost device can cost a business $50,000 in lost productivity, data security issues and replacing the device itself.
The Solution: Physically Protect Devices with FUYL Towers
When dealing with personal data, especially data dealing with patient health, patient confidentiality is a significant issue. The IT systems and the IT hardware used by all medical professionals must be secure enough to protect patients. A single lost device can cost a business $50,000 in lost productivity, data security issues and replacing the device itself.
41% of data breaches are caused by lost or stolen devices.
That’s why The Center implemented MDM software to address digital security. And because 41% of data breaches are caused by stolen devices, a LocknCharge FUYL Tower Charging Locker was implemented to address physical security, enabling providers to lock up their devices while not in use. Their security plan also decreased the likelihood that devices would go missing or be stolen, keeping the allocated budget for the devices on track and protecting the hospital from costly data breaches.
Bonus Solution: The same FUYL Towers that protect staff devices, can also be used to charge tablets for patients. In a time when visitations are limited, these tablets can be vital to maintaining connections between friends and family and the people they care about in the hospital. While nothing substitutes a personal connection, the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine has found that connecting with patients through iPads is the next best thing.
Visit LocknCharge at HETT Reset, the UK’s leading healthcare technology event. While the event may be virtual, you’ll still have the opportunity to witness real LocknCharge healthcare solutions in action.
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*For complete testing data information, please visit: www.lockncharge.com/eu/uvone-testing-data