Locala Community Partnerships lead the way in community healthcare with new IT cloud infrastructure from Dell

Dell has signed an agreement to provide innovative community healthcare provider, Locala Community Partnerships (Locala), with a new cloud service that will deliver critical clinical and administrative information at the point of care through an advanced cloud-based infrastructure.
With two-thirds of its 1,200 workforce constantly on the move, Locala wanted a solution that could provide every member of staff with access to relevant, real-time information and excellent connectivity. This contract will support Locala’s future growth plans and help keep its significant mobile workforce connected, with the ultimate goal to enable the delivery of NHS community healthcare services to a 400,000-plus population in West Yorkshire.

As a trusted leader in providing complete solutions in healthcare IT in the UK for more than 15 years, Dell will help Locala move to a hybrid cloud model, which will provide staff with secure access to all relevant information systems, applications and data wherever they are - seamlessly, instantly and securely. Based on a Dell cloud solution that is hosted in a secure Dell data centre in Slough, the new service will connect staff with all their required clinical applications as well as the NHS N3 network, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Lync. Via the internet, staff will be able to access all relevant patient information, corporate systems and unified communications tools ensuring a more efficient, agile workforce.

The new end-to-end IT architecture will consist of Dell PowerEdge, PowerVault, Networking and KACE solutions. New Dell Latitude laptops will also be provided to allow clinical users remote access via a Dell SonicWALL Clean VPN Solution to patient information and ensure that records are accessed and updated at the point of care. IT support will be provided by Dell’s Nottingham Service Desk, which will simplify support to one point of call for all IT related queries.

With a national drive to reduce NHS inpatient hospital care where appropriate, there comes an increasing emphasis on community healthcare services. Through working with Dell to upgrade its existing IT infrastructure, Locala’s already agile clinicians will now have the ability to harness the latest technology which will enable them to provide excellent patient care as efficiently as possible across a large geographic area.

Moving from a reliance on being connected to a local network, to being able to access critical information from anywhere there is an internet connection, will revolutionise how Locala operate; introducing a more flexible, scalable and cost effective solution that will help improve efficiency and manageability while supporting growth. The Dell solution also allows Locala to keep a close eye on current and future costs, which will be vital as the partnership looks to expand.