In March 2020, during the onset of the pandemic, Central London Community Healthcare (CLCH) had to transform the way it delivered its community health services quickly. These services include different rehabilitation services and therapies for post-acute care, long term condition management services such as diabetes and Parkinson’s, and walk-in urgent care for minor illnesses. To help keep patients and staff safe and facilitate continued healthcare, James Fabule, Project Manager, IT Transformation Office of CLCH, needed to find a solution quickly that would fit with the overarching strategy of accessible patient care but that could also be deployed without additional infrastructure or considerable resource requirements.

With an overarching goal to transform outdated practices and improve innovation throughout the Trust, James Fabule and his team, worked to help the Trust move away from dated and rigid ways of working to more agile and efficient processes. During its research, CLCH realized it needed a solution that would make it easy to migrate existing workflows and integrate simply with its current infrastructure without additional projects or investment. “At that point in time, everything stood at a standstill, and people were waiting to be seen,” James recalls when asked about the urgency he felt.

BlueJeans stood out due to the platform’s simplicity, ease of rapid deployment, and the high level of engagement from the BlueJeans CLCH account team at every step of the process. As James explains: “I think it was amazing the way they came to our aid. With the other vendors, the amount of procurement work and background work was overwhelming. Thanks to BlueJeans, we were able to get things going in about three weeks!”

In just three months CLCH is now conducting more than 60 percent of services over video rather than in-person. Since deployment, CLCH has seen the number of monthly meetings increase rapidly to more than 20,000 meetings and 865,000 minutes. Other than patient consultations, BlueJeans is used internally by the staff to collaborate and connect effectively. Staff members are using BlueJeans for handover meetings to keep communication lines open and provide optimal patient care. In addition to BlueJeans Meetings, CLCH uses BlueJeans Events for large-scale townhalls. Most recently, CLCH used BlueJeans Events for the Trust Business Meeting, where the Trust’s leaders met to strategize, discuss priorities, disburse essential resources, and make impactful decisions that involve the staff and patient community.

Key features that CLCH find valuable is the superior video and audio quality in BlueJeans Meetings — whether in the desktop, in a web browser or using mobile devices. The excellent video and Dolby audio help replicate an in-person consultation that patients and clinicians are used to, with the least amount of effort on anyone’s part. The in-meeting chat and breakout rooms are also considered essential features. For instance, before implementing BlueJeans, therapists would have groups of 5 to 10 patients visit the hospital in person for a group therapy session. Thanks to BlueJeans’ breakout session feature, patients get all the benefits of group therapy from the comfort of their own homes.

Unparalleled security is another important reason CLCH chose BlueJeans. “Throughout our organisation, BlueJeans has been the only approved application for patient consultation,” James says. “It’s the only one we deem safe enough for us for treating our numerous patients.”

BlueJeans’ channel partner SCC AVS had an instrumental role to play in the fast deployment of BlueJeans and the hardware that CLCH needed. SCC AVS helped roll out 33 BlueJeans Rooms with Dolby Voice for the hospital’s conference rooms for staff members on-site. The synergy between the three entities played an instrumental role in the successful and timely deployment.

As a renowned Community Health NHS Trust in the United Kingdom, CLCH provides more than seventy community healthcare services in several London boroughs and Hertfordshire. With more than 3500 staff members, CLCH delivers care to more than two million patients. Its community health programs help patients throughout their lives — from newborn care to community nursing and eldercare. James predicts that CLCH’s hybrid virtual and in-person care model will continue to succeed even after the pandemic because of the time and resources saved by enabling virtual visits. With virtual consultations now being the norm, CLCH can divert the resources to focus on other projects to improve healthcare processes, maintain quality, and provide smart, effective care to the CLCH community.

To learn more about how Central London Community Healthcare (CLCH) had to quickly transform the way it delivered its community health services when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, read the case study here! To learn more about how other customers are using BlueJeans, check out our Customers page. Plus, try out BlueJeans Meetings or BlueJeans Events for free today!