Microsoft-NHS Knowledge Worker Tools

The Enterprise Agreement between Microsoft and the NHS means that licenses for using Office SharePoint Server 2007 are freely available to staff in NHS Trusts. This exciting technology brings a world of opportunity for healthcare staff to collaborate formally and informally using cutting-edge software tools.

The Microsoft Knowledge Worker Tools (KWT) project has spent the past 18 months adding a vital ingredient - Solution Enablers - that demonstrate exactly how you can apply SharePoint to business problems that are common to many NHS Trusts and Healthcare Organisations. These Solution Enablers, developed by Collaboris and Microsoft, are now available free of charge to everyone. Whether it’s storing meetings information electronically, ensuring policies and guidelines are correctly maintained and published, or designing forms to automate human resources tasks, the KWT project has something to offer. Constructed with the help of experienced NHS staff , the Solution Enablers bring three benefits to NHS Trusts and other Healthcare Organisations:

• Meaningful demonstrations of SharePoint usage, with NHS examples.
• Ready-made proof of concepts.
• Starter solutions that provide many of the features needed in a Trust, out of the box, with minimum effort.

So far the KWT team has released five Solution Enablers, each one available in NHS branded and unbranded versions. The NHS branded versions are only available to Trusts via the internal PSPG site. The unbranded versions are called Solution Accelerators and are freely available via the Microsoft Healthcare Portal. For more information on each solution enabler please follow the links below:

• Managing Meetings
• Scorecards
• Collaboration Fundamentals
• Policies and Procedures
• Template Gallery
• Electronic Forms

But what about taking the next step?

How can an NHS Trust or Healthcare Organisation IT team brand the Solution Enablers, and provide extended features to allow for local requirements?

That’s where the Collaboris SharePoint Development Jump-Start Programme comes in. We have been working with a number of NHS IT teams, and know that putting in place a sound software development lifecycle is the right path to long-term SharePoint success. Our programme makes this experience available to your Trust. For full details about this programme please check our SharePoint Jump-Start page.