Category Archives: Blog

Health services must collaborate and communicate

Digital communications across the health services have to be radically improved in order to enable health professionals to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on patient-centric activities. For example, in relation to enabling such communication amongst professionals, while email is useful, care must be taken not to try to use it for purposes for which it was never intended, especially these days with the maturation and cost-effectiveness of cloud and collaboration technologies that can substantially improve communication and cooperation between professionals at low cost.

Communication and collaboration

Obviously, the email platform should continue to address facilities such as creating and receiving emails, delegated access, distribution lists, shared mailboxes, out-of-office assistant, archiving, email router, portable email accounts, gateway and relay, but all too often email locks away patient information from most health professionals when they need it.

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HighQ to demonstrate new mobile optimised version of HighQ Collaborate at LawTech Futures 2013

April 25, London – HighQ, a leading provider of secure enterprise collaboration, publishing and file sharing software is pleased to announce that it will be speaking at LawTech Futures 2013. The sold out conference, Europe’s biggest one day legal technology event, is taking place next Tuesday 30th April at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, London.

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Health services – collaboration between professionals

Current state of affairs and possibilities for innovation

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 and complementary work such asThe Power of Information published by the Department of Health in May 2012, outline a radical new approach for commissioning and delivery of clinical services, which is necessary if health providers are to sustain the services at the point of need that the public expect and require.

Health services innovation

Also, as recently outlined by Tim Kelsey, the National Director for Patients and Information at the NHS Commissioning Board, the increased use of digital systems to support such a fundamental change across the NHS is critical to the sustainability of the health service.

The increasing availability of Summary Care Records is positive but does not address the need for health professionals to share the detailed information with which they can maximise their effectiveness and efficiency – to spend more time on patient-centric activities while also being well informed with the latest up-to-date patient information when required.

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Unleash the benefits of social business

Should your business be social?

To many of us the answer to this question is obvious and this post may seem like it’s teaching you to suck eggs, but let’s not forget that we are still in the minority. Many people remain stifled by organisational red tape, aren’t engaged or just have their head in the sand and are blissfully unaware of the benefits of social business.

The benefits of social business

Let’s begin by touching on the most important element of social business (the clue is in the title). It’s not about the technology, nor a process, but about the human network that exists in your organisation. Without realising this and ensuring everything you do has this as its core entity, no amount of technology or process will solve the communication challenges and problems your organisation is facing (problems that are actually common in many, if not most organisations). Here we hope to highlight how ‘being social’ can benefit you, your team and your organisation - whilst aligning with the overall strategic goals of your business.

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The changing role of email in a social business

In the late 70s and early 80s businesses were on the edge of a massive transformation. The birth of the internet and email changed the way organisations went about their business dramatically, providing a sense of connectivity and the broader ability to engage with a client base. However in the last 30 years email has not advanced as a concept, but what has changed significantly, is our usage of it. Email became the hub of our working day, with quotes like “take me away from my inbox and you’ll make me less efficient” being banded around, and more third parties building integrations into a tool it was never designed for (I heard the CIO of a magic circle law firm say they were having a nightmare upgrading to Outlook 2010 because they had 23 Outlook add-ins). Ultimately the end result is that email has become a behemoth.

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De Brauw streamlines how it collaborates with clients using HighQ Collaborate

Read our new case study about the implementation of HighQ Collaborate in De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, a leading Dutch law firm with approximately 650 staff and six international offices.

HighQ Collaborate is a place where De Brauw can provide, share and prepare specific know-how for its clients. HighQ has provided the firm with a flexible and granular security model that ensures that both internal and external users can be granted exact permissions to a site, folder or individual document. In addition, modules such as iSheets, Tasks and Events provide powerful and dynamic project management tools.

Recently published on Legal IT Professionals.

Public services: innovation, responsiveness and lower costs – the necessary response to the contemporary challenges

Since the economic crisis of 2008 the UK public sector like many others has had to adjust to difficult reductions in budgets along with trying to maintain services, and of course this situation continues to challenge for the foreseeable future.

The UK government’s ICT strategy, published in March 2011, set out an innovative approach to help with these challenges, and in particular for example, made manifest the G-Cloud programme, which enables the UK public sector to engage significantly with UK SMEs for the first time. By way of the G-Cloud programme, the UK public sector can benefit from innovation, responsiveness and lower costs from SMEs that have been lacking from large international providers. In particular, organisations across the public sector can improve effectiveness and efficiency by deploying modern cloud-based software platforms for collaborating securely, both internally and with other departments and with external organisations.

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Overcoming fear of the cloud in legal IT

When considering cloud services, as with any IT solution, it is important to ask the right questions. When discussing solutions with law firms, it becomes apparent that there are considerations that are unique to their business. Fear is a common reaction when something isn’t properly understood – for the purposes of this blog, “cloud services” means software and data on servers in a data centre remote to the user and, crucially, managed by a third party provider.

Now, there are lots of scary stories about the cloud out there but cloud services are not new – many law firms globally have used cloud services for over a decade now, which we all know is at least two lifetimes in the technology world. If you doubt this, think back, were you using a smartphone a decade ago or a tablet just 3 years ago? Cloud services are here and they’re here to stay. In 2010, 63% of firms used cloud services, which rose to 88% in 20121, so it’s important to understand what to ask. Most firms’ most sensitive data is in the cloud at some point already; the most popular uses1 being email spam filtering, email continuity and payroll, as well as data rooms and client extranets. Many firms are also architecting their infrastructure around a cloud-based reality, for example, nearly 8 out of 10 firms now have redundant internet connections1.

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How Government can maximise the effectiveness of a collaboration platform

Considering the critical need in the public sector to reduce budgets and maintain services, a cloud-based collaboration platform can be an excellent way to improve effectiveness and efficiency, both within your own organisation and with other government departments and external organisations. While such a successful outcome is not a certainty, it is definitely achievable provided that a sufficiently rigorous approach is adopted to choosing your collaboration platform.

No less an authority than distinguished consultants McKinsey have published a number of reports on the matter, such as “The rise of the networked enterprise”[1]. Such reports show that collaboration technologies can help to improve effectiveness and efficiency not only in ways that are measurable, but also that are sustainable.

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Lex Mundi KM Round table 2012 slides

I was fortunate enough to be asked to present at the Lex Mundi KM roundtable last Thursday. I wanted to share the slides from my presentation and a few notes for the key themes.

I was lucky enough to be present in the room for the two preceding presentations. They highlighted that the room was full of thoughtful, engaged people, all sharing knowledge and experience. The discussions during the session immediately preceding mine provided a great introduction to elements in my talk. These included:

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