The PSSD technical services have received a Big Shout Out for their roll out of a new system, which is making it easier to keep track and report on their workload.
The team delivered a significant change project across Lanarkshire through the implementation and roll out of a new NHS Lanarkshire Computer Aided Facilities Management Systems (CAFM) called MAXIMO.
Shirley McMillan, deputy director for property and support services, said: “Property and Support Services provide soft and hard FM services across Lanarkshire’s estate, including Monklands, managing the PFI contracts at Hairmyres and Wishaw. We also provide hard and soft FM in most of our community sites.
“We also have a technical services department who look after our IT systems and we provide fire safety advice, property management team, project management for a number of different types of sizes of projects across Lanarkshire.
“And of course we have West of Scotland Laundry.”
The team instigated a project to replace their IT system that was used for their help desk.
Shirley added: “The system that we did have was a paper based system. So we generated work tasks on paper and that was literally thousands of pieces of paper every week and every month which were generated in order to give an instruction.
“It wasn’t the best system in that it was outdated, it didn’t give us live reporting.
“So we instigated a project where we presented a business case to SIG, the Capital Investment Group, to replace the old system with a new more up to date system.
“The system gives live reporting on iPads or mobile devices. It gives us better assurance as an organization around about our compliance levels at any moment in time and we are able to have more up to date dashboards rounded by performance on soft and hard FM delivery.”
The system was rolled out at University Hospital Monklands.
Shirley added: “We have users on the clinical side who can log their own jobs and track the porter progresses in delivering whatever their request is. So it really is a big improvement. It’s bringing us into the 21st century as far as delivery of facilities management services goes.
“We’re doing away with our paper based system. It’s eliminated a lot of that paper handling. It means that we close down jobs directly into the mobile device, so we can see at any moment in time the status of a job. So we’ve got live reporting, so it means we’ve got better, more up to date management information.
“Our clinical colleagues have engaged really well with the system. I’m really grateful for all the support from technical services. They pulled in colleagues from various different roles within the department to help get this project over the line. It’s been a real team effort.
“We’ve had staff out all hours at weekends, working different shifts to help staff use the system and be comfortable with it. And it really has been key to the success of the system.
“So I’m really grateful and thankful for the work and the foresight of the team to anticipate the sorts of problems that were going to come down the line and head them off as early as possible.”
The Big Shout Out praises NHS Lanarkshire teams for taking an innovative, creative and patient-centred approach to working, and recognises the unique contribution staff make to overcoming the challenges faced across the entire healthcare system.
