‘Huddles’ in the corporate world is a bit of a buzz word, businesses are utilising them for collaborative meetings, idea sharing and presentations. Governments are using huddles already, we know as we’ve had a part of implementing these ourselves! But is the health sector seeing the full potential of these informal meeting spaces?
Every NHS trust, CCG and hospital will already have meeting spaces and MDT rooms, so is there any need for huddle spaces?
Huddle spaces provide the ability to host a meeting in a tech-enabled, budget friendly space. Having a meeting in a plush boardroom is great, but is there any need to sit around a 12-seater table, when there’s only 3 people in the meeting? Not only is it blocking out the meeting room for other people wanting to meet, it’s not cost-effective using such a large room with high-end technology for such small meetings.
In non-clinical departments within a trust, for example education, project delivery, finance, IT or marketing, there is the same need for internal meetings as any corporate business. Meetings to discuss upcoming projects, team changes, updates in policy etc could be discussed in a specially designed booth or area for 2-6 people. Holding these meetings with less people in huddle spaces will free up the larger meeting rooms for other people to use.
A team within a hospital could see immense benefits of having a huddle space, for example a team of nurses. A team meeting to discuss patient safety, an occurrence that day or to hold a shift handover could be held adhoc or prebooked in this semi-private space. The ‘bring your own device’ nature of the huddle will allow a nurse to share information from a tablet through seamless content sharing, and an interactive display will allow notes and annotations to be made on digital documents during the meeting, which can be saved and reviewed at a later time.
A team member can join the meeting from another area of the hospital or even from home, by enabling the huddle space with medio.link, an N3 based conferencing platform which allows users within the N3 and on external networks to connect over video or just audio securely.
The return on investment by implementing huddle spaces throughout any business or organisation is huge, and especially in a health environment where teams are very busy and can be dispersed- yet their need to collaborate is higher than most. Patient safety is at the top of priorities for people within the NHS and giving teams a space to hold team meetings and shift handovers to discuss any concerns and occurrences is vital and making these spaces tech-enabled boosts the effectiveness and capabilities of the meeting.
To find out more about using huddle spaces in healthcare, please get in touch!
