Universal AV has supplied 250 Professional BRAVIA 4K screens, 70 Interactive Overlays, and 90 TEOS tablets to the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
The North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) NHS Trust is the ambulance service for North West England. It is one of 10 ambulance trusts providing England with emergency medical services and is part of the National Health Service funded by the government.
Working with Universal AV and Sony Professional Displays and Solutions, NWAS wanted to modernise and improve the efficiency of core functionalities at each of its sites with workplace management solution TEOS Manage and BRAVIA 4K Professional Displays.
With noticeboards previously relying solely on paper to communicate everything from damage to a vehicle to a road closure in the local area, the ambulance stations were not equipped to maximise full efficiency for staff and visitors.
The NWAS needed to find a solution that allowed its employees to work smarter, not harder. This need became especially apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic, as ambulance services were stretched to their limit making it even more crucial to save precious time in day-to-day operations.
“The field we operate in leaves no margin for errors. As a critical service to the public we have to be able to respond accurately and in a timely manner,” said John Martland, head of IT Support Services for NWAS.
“While it was not inhibiting us from doing our job properly, the set-up as it was at each of our stations was not supporting our NHS staff in the best and most efficient way possible.
“I turned to Sony because I had seen how well their BRAVIA and TEOS ecosystem had worked in other organisations and went forward with this digitalisation project with Universal AV knowing that the products and solutions on offer would revolutionise the experience for the employees at NWAS.”
NWAS decided to work with Sony to digitise its systems and deploy interactive interfaces on site that would modernise what was an out-of-date system, relying heavily on paper.
With each ambulance station using up to six noticeboards to share critical and time-sensitive information, it was clear to Martland that paper needed to be scrapped and NWAS needed to begin to automate its processes with smart technology.
The deployment started at the station in Kendal, which was running off an old fibre line and was contributing to the issue of latency. The NWAS is now laying a bespoke fibre line into the building. To utilise the latest technology, the organisation also needed to modernise the core infrastructure on which it all sits.
Martland added: “It wasn’t all easy and smooth sailing. At first the cloud was falling over and was unable to support without lagging, as there wasn’t enough RAM, but working with Universal AV and Sony we were able to quickly find a solution.
“Once we put a new off-premises cloud server in we achieved instant responsiveness at the push of a button. Now we are rolling out the deployment across all of our stations and corporate sites.”
So far the team have rolled out the new setup at 25 sites, each of which consists of a network of Sony BRAVIA 4K Professional Displays, interactive tablets and varying IoT devices that are all connected into the brain of Sony TEOS Manage solution.
This single-pane management system means that each site can, for example, enable employees to simply walk up to an interactive screen and give a report on the task that they have just completed, and provide information such as the stock that was used and what needs to be replaced before that vehicle is called out again.
It is also possible to say whether the vehicle sustained any damage during the call-out and whether the damage requires urgent maintenance before re-deploying that ambulance.
Once this information is inputted into the system, unlike the previous set-up which was heavily paper-reliant, the report is now automated and can provide the employee with smart information to ensure maximum efficiency for the following processes and protocols.
With the Sony TEOS Manage solution, if there is a major incident NWAS can now access a complete view of all hospitals in the local area, their capacity and the time based on current traffic conditions it would take to divert the ambulance there.
Looking to the future, NWAS is now confident that it is best equipped for the everyday running of its stations, as well as being prepared for any further crises.
By updating its infrastructure, this modernisation project opens possibilities for the future technological needs of the ambulance services too – futureproofing that ensures the best safety, processes and practice for staff and customers alike.
Reference : AVinteractive
