DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Calling All Doctors Gary Adams, Head of Digital Operations at Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, talked us through its recent digital transformation.
Q What prompted the shift toward rethinking your contact centre and digital capabilities at Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust? GA: At the beginning of 2024, we were told that the lease on the building that housed our Care Coordination Hub was ending. That gave us just three months to find a new home and a replacement for the legacy telephony system that was tied to that location. The Hub is a vital frontline service that patients call into, so this wasn’t just a matter of moving desks. Rather than treat it as just a logistical problem, we viewed it as an opportunity to modernise and improve how we support patient care more broadly.
Q What were your key requirements and thought process when selecting a new contact centre solution? GA: Ultimately, we needed something flexible and cost-effective that could be deployed on an incredibly tight timeline. My goal was to improve operational efficiency without disrupting patient services, a complete non-negotiable for us. In a publicly funded organisation, value for money is always a key driver, and we wanted to make sure that any investment supported front-line care directly. RingCentral’s RingCX stood out because it met all our requirements, and we were also reassured by industry analyst evaluations showing it was a market leader. Having worked with several major IVR and contact centre providers before, RingCX was the only one that gave me confidence that we could meet our deadlines and still deliver long-term value. Q Were there any disruptions to patient services during the transition, and if so, how did you manage this? GA: Amazingly, no. Everything was going so smoothly that I worried something had to go wrong at some point, but it never did. The transition was seamless, and services continued without disruption. We had 100 users relying on the system as their primary way of communicating with patients, and we couldn’t afford any downtime. Everything was accounted for, and services continued without interruption. From day one, staff were able to work from any location, whether a Trust site
Gary Adams, Head of Digital Operations
We had 100 users relying on the system as their primary way of communicating with patients, and we couldn’t
afford any downtime.
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