Aligning technology and estates strategies

Effective use of technology can significantly and positively impact the design and day-to-day running of NHS estates, with the power to make buildings more efficient and less wasteful, create income generation opportunities, and help ‘future-proof’ the estate long-term. To do this, however, technology and estates strategy need to be better aligned, argues Tas Hind, director of Technology at Essentia Trading. Here, with input from her, and a number of technology providers, HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, focuses on some of the more transformative technologies currently being deployed.

Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs), GDEs (Global Digital Exemplars), and Fast Followers, are ‘wellpositioned to lead on the technology agenda’, believes Tas Hind of Essentia Trading, a subsidiary business wholly owned by London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust launched in 2013 to provide consultancy services, working with clients – many of them in the NHS – on strategy and estate development. So far, however, she explained, their focus has principally been on ‘digitising frontline services’. She elaborated: “While the ETTF (Estates and Technology Transformation Fund) is also a great avenue for driving forward these types of changes, Trusts should be looking at how technology can transform estates as a norm.” What, I wondered, though, does Essentia consider the most valuable such technologies available to healthcare estates teams today?

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