#nhswifi2014
survey of WiFi access for NHS staff
@marcus_baw
Locum General Hacktitioner, North West UK
Director, @openGPSoC & BawMedical
eHealth, Dermatology, Prison, Hospice
Medical Director, @NeovaHealth
Previous Life #1: Emergency Physician
Previous Life #2: Anaesthetist
2013
http://bit.ly/1xG4Dhy
in places where WiFi was present, local clinicians assumed
everybody
had similar levels of WiFi access
conversely, where WiFi was absent, clinicians assumed
nobody
had WiFi
nobody actually had a picture of WiFi access across the whole NHS
2013
John Popham - Patient WiFi
2013 results
"Which of the following best describes Staff access to WiFi at your place of NHS work?"
My organisation has a free WiFi network and I have the password 20.30%
My organisation has a free WiFi network but I do not have the password 20.18%
My place of work has installed its own free WiFi outside of NHS provision 2.63%
WiFi service that is not free (eg Commercial Provider) 3.76%
No WiFi - there are no WiFi networks at all 36.22%
EduRoam academic network 1.38%
The "12%"
12.16% responded 'Other'
A large proportion of these were along the lines of
"There is WiFi for managers and IT staff only"
:-(
Why do clinicians need WiFi anyway?
(aren't you meant to be working?)
knowledge resources at the point of care
anecdotally
better decision making
based on better evidence and latest guidance
better information for patients
most up-to-date information is internet based...
searchable... comparable... reviewed...
carrying a load of books around is increasingly infeasible
"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better"
Florence Nightingale,
Cassandra
, 1860
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself...
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man"
George Bernard Shaw,
Maxims for Revolutionaries
, 1903
Why isn't he talking about mobile access to EHRs, test results, radiology?
it's a whole other can of worms
issues with interfacing with EHRs
vendor-specific complications & obstinacy
Information Governance, security, device lockdown, authentication
let's leave that for another day shall we...
Medical School iPads
Numerous medical schools (Manchester, Leicester, Dartmouth) are providing iPads to all medical students
http://bit.ly/1wU0RBh
2013 survey impact
turns out...
HSCIC & NHS England don't actually have any of this information
but they were interested to hear about it
presented findings to Jonathan Kay, Clinical Informatics Director, NHS England
presented last year at Skunkworks, NHS England
2014
repeated the survey
supported by e-Health Insider
same basic idea, questions tweaked slightly
2014
LimeSurvey-powered (open source self hosted survey engine)
Sept-Oct 2014 about 500 respondents
survey design had to compromise between simplicity and perfection of data
Can you access WiFi in
your place of NHS work?
2013 YES 28.07%
(sum of all 'yeswifi' answers incl non-free etc)
2014 YES 51.24%
'YesWiFi' subgroup
I can connect to WiFi with my own device (BYOD) 61.13%
I can connect to WiFi with a work-provided device 53.04%
WiFi requires login on a web page after device connects to WiFi network 42.91%
I have access to EduRoam, the academic WiFi network 5.67%
WiFi is provided by a commercial service 22.67%
WiFi access is free 77.33%
WiFi access works in most areas of my workplace that I need it to 52.63%
'NoWiFi' subgroup
WiFi access is only for work devices and I haven't been provided with one 52.36%
WiFi isn't required - internet and clinical record access via Desktop PCs is sufficient 10.85%
There are no WiFi networks at all 28.77%
There is a good mobile data signal (ie 3G, 4G) in my place of work 11.79%
Summary
Definite improvement over last year's results
Still only 50% of clinical staff have access though
Still a lot of comments that WiFi is available but only for IT staff/Managers (and in one commment the cleaners - ?hyperbole) but not Clinical staff.
Even where WiFi is present,
30% is non-free
And only 50% reported it was everywhere it is needed
My Messages
WiFi is not a toy, clinicians need it to work smarter and safer
Not providing WiFi for your clinicians is like having no hospital Library
Allow BYOD. You
trust
clinicians to treat patients don't you?
If you want to provide Trust hardware, fine, just don't make this a roadblock
Landing page logins
significantly
reduce usability
2015?
Will I need to run this survey again?
*prepares to grind axes*
Semi-arbitrary and counterproductive Web Filters?
IT hardware underpowered for modern uses?
The Survey Is Still Live, at:
bit.ly/nhswifi2014
Links & Thanks
www.opengpsoc.org
www.handihealth.org
www.nhshackday.org
Reveal.js presentation framework
https://github.com/hakimel/reveal.js
Leaflet.js mapping framework
https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet
discussion