The latest news, updates and opportunities on offer from Purcell Radio Systems
Out with the old and in with the new...
2016 has been viewed a divisive and often troubling year that most people are glad to see the back of. As we welcome 2017 however, I have heard many people say that in spite of the quasi-biblical plague on beloved cultural icons, the domestic and international disharmony, challenges, and changes, 2016 has actually been a productive and fulfilling year for them personally. When it comes down to it, I feel the same way and I sincerely hope that you do to.
One thing is for sure, we won't make the most of 2017 brooding over uncertainties left in last year's wake or whatever's going on in the White House. To appropriate a 2016 soundbite, if I May: "New Year means New Year", so here's to a positive and productive 2017, making the most of the things within our reach.
CARPS in the Cloud
Existing users will know CARPS as a locally hosted software system, typically residing on NHS Trust IT servers and networks. We have become used to working with Trust IT departments and CARPS end users, whether in-house NHS staff, PFI or external contractors, to navigate the set-up and deployment of systems and to provide ongoing support as required.
Recent years have seen a growing demand, perhaps even an expectation, that business applications should be cloud hosted or available in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Reasons cited for this preference include a reduced burden on IT resources and the availability of applications over the web, allowing access from any internet connected PC, rather than limiting users to machines with the application installed.
It has been our concern that one of the principle benefits of CARPS might be compromised if the application were offered over the web: that of speed. Applications that run sluggishly, causing slight delays loading each page are frustrating in any environment. In dynamic, high pressure environments such as hospital support services, this frustration quickly becomes a nightmare. As Cloud hosted or SaaS applications are running via an internet connection, rather than directly from the hard drive of a PC, they are almost certain to run more slowly than locally hosted applications.
However, we are pleased to say that we are now able to offer CARPS as a hosted service, with minimal impact to the speed at which the applications run. We have a number of projects underway which will see CARPS supplied as a Cloud-hosted service using the Microsoft Azure platform. We see this option as of particular benefit to hospital support services contractors, who have limited or indirect access to on-site IT infrastructure and networks. The vast majority of CARPS outages reported to us are not faults with the software itself but are caused by network changes and updates, which affect CARPS' permissions or database server connection. CARPS as a hosted service should significantly reduce such issues as well as offering flexible access to applications, as described above.
A small locally hosted server, which we are able to supply and maintain, is still required to enable two-way radio communications to interface with your CARPS system.
We are happy to talk to any existing CARPS users who are interested in switching to CARPS as a hosted service to discuss how this can be managed.
TopCat's Dashing New Look
A new dashboard feature is now available for TopCat, offering a useful and easily accessible overview of real-time performance data, to further help users stay informed and on top of their compliance auditing processes.
The TopCat Dashboard provides a user friendly, web-based interface, presenting live performance information. The Dashboard display can be configured to include data from a range of audit categories and across various sites. This makes it simple for managers, supervisors, staff, or even end service users to assess current performance from a broad, top level, right down to specific audit information.
The Dashboard provides access to four different data sets, which can be filtered according to Audit Category, Location Attributes, Risk Level and more, to produce the information you want to display:
- Performance (Score) - giving an average score for the total number of audits performed
- Effort (Completed Audits) - detailing the total number of audits or inspections carried out
- Forecast Effort (Expected Audits) - shows the expected or target number of audits projected based on Risk Levels
- Shortfall (Expired/Overdue Audits) - shows the total number of audits that were completed after their due date or have passed their due date and are yet to be completed
Thanks for reading...
2017 promises to be a really exciting year for us with some great projects already underway and more on the horizon - we will be in touch later in the year with further updates and developments. We wish you all the best with your own endeavours, please get in touch if there's anything we can do to help.
P.S. If you know anyone you think might like to receive this quarterly newsletter, please forward their name and email address to us. We will confirm their interest before adding them to the list.
Best wishes,
Tom Purcell
Purcell | Business Development
tel: +44 (0)20 7739 8060
email: tom@purcellradio.com
www.purcellradio.com