N3 to HSCN – The Switch from N3 to HSCN is here !
So another festive season of mince pies, Christmas pud and for many, a glass or two too many is over and a new year is well under way. So what challenges and opportunities are in store for us in 2019? Well, what a question that is!
As a provider of collaboration software and services, things are always advancing and changing and certainly within the NHS, questions are always being asked about governance, security, interoperability and the ease of use of new and upcoming Video Conferencing services. I had these, and more questions posed to me in December by NHS Digital about our medio.link service which is currently being used by around 20 NHS Trusts across the UK. These questions were asked of us because of the impending end of the BT N3 conferencing service which will expire as the migration from N3 to HSCN gathers more and more pace this coming year. With Hospitals across the country already seeing their BT services being switched off, new providers are being sought that can offer not only a “core bridging service”, but also ones that will offer greater functionality across their feature sets.
Put simply, this means that any video conferencing systems that are registered with the BT N3 service will not be supported and will at some point during the next 12 months, fail. NHS digital has shared the following advice with Trust’s still using the BT service: “As we now proceed with migration planning and implementation of HSCN access connectivity, you will need to ensure plans are developed and are in place to cease BT N3 video services before your planned date of migration of the relevant N3 access connectivity underlay. The BT N3 Video service is not supported (and would fail) when the underlying access connectivity migrates from N3 to HSCN. “
Now in terms of challenges for the NHS, this is a biggy but in terms of opportunities, it’s huge and it’s our clear focus for the start of 2019 to support NHS Digital in helping to migrate as many Hospitals as possible across to our medio.link service platform before the end of March, providing users and systems across the NHS with the following rich feature set:
- medio.link is an extremely powerful and flexible conferencing and collaboration platform which resides on the NHS N3/HSCN network. It facilitates secure communication between both internal NHS systems and users as well as users on the public internet. Incredibly versatile and easy to use, it meets with ALL NHS Information Governance requirements.
- Always on, always reliable service with 24/7 support available.
- Full interoperability: any device, video endpoint, laptop or mobile… ISDN, IP, SIP with inbuilt Audio integration.
- Cost effective service with flexible billing you decide by minute, month, annual.
- medio.link fully integrates with Skype for Business which is rolling out as part of the delivery of “NHS Mail 2”.
Over 90% of Involve MDT customers use medio.link. Why? Because it registers your users and room systems natively to the N3/HSCN network. medio.link has options for dedicated user accounts and to register devices, all with up to 24 participants per call & unlimited usage.
So, why should you choose medio.link as your new pair of safe hands?
- Our goal is to build meaningful partnerships with healthcare organisations and empower the NHS to deliver best in class digital health services.
- It’s an established service, with over 1500 NHS & Healthcare users connected each month
- Accounts for users connecting from within the NHS, outside of the NHS, Skype for Business and even guest connection.
- Accounts for rooms, especially MDT rooms. We connect 700 MDT sessions per month.
- medio.link connectivity features in over 90% of Involve enabled MDT installations
- Our customer feedback speaks for itself. See our case studies.
- Our team has almost 10 years’ experience providing digital solutions to the NHS and medio.link is a long term strategy, this is just the beginning.
- medio.link simplifies the videoconference hardware requirement and registers natively to the N3/HSCN network, meaning for NHS to NHS dialing, there is no need to “break out” into the internet.
In addition to medio.link for conferencing applications, we continue to develop other services with extra focus on end user outcomes…
- Virtual Clinic is for clinician/specialist to patient calling. Click here for more details.
- Involve Interpreter can connect with Virtual Clinic delivering video-based interpretation services across a plethora of core and rarer languages.
- New for 2019! Video based British Sign Language interpretation services.
To find out more about migrating from BT Engage, or any other service mentioned in this blog please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
