Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) puts patients at the heart of everything it does. Providing a full range of services at its five hospitals in the United Kingdom, it would regularly hold team meetings where specialists from different disciplines and hospitals came together to decide on a treatment plan for a patient. For many years, the trust held these meetings from conference rooms across different facilities using traditional video conferencing. But this closed system wasn’t efficient, and with the shift to remote work due to the pandemic, specialists needed to be able to join meetings from anywhere rather than a GSTT conference room. By deploying BlueJeans ahead of the original schedule, the trust was able to ensure continued care for patients even as the pandemic drastically affected its ability to deliver services. Specialists could meet and collaborate from the safety of their homes and make sure patients received critical treatments without delay.
Objective
- GSTT needed a more efficient way for specialists to make vital decisions about patient treatment plans through virtual meetings. It sought a more flexible and scalable video conferencing platform to improve collaboration and enhance its room-based conferencing system.
Solution
- The foundation trust implemented BlueJeans Meetings and BlueJeans Rooms to enable specialists to meet and collaborate regardless of their location or device.
Results
- Specialists have been able to collaborate more easily and effectively — from their homes or in the hospital, using any device, including GSST’s conference room systems.
- This has enabled them to decide on treatment plans without delay, and to deliver much-needed care to patients, even during the most critical times of the pandemic.
- The foundation trust has been able to support a surge in demand for specialist team meetings during the pandemic — from 60 a week to around 800.
- It has changed the way it works by having a flexible means of communicating and collaborating, helping ensure patients remain central to its activities.
