Energy innovation hub deploys Salesforce Partner Portal to prescribe Warm Homes for vulnerable UK patients.
Executive Summary
With rising energy costs and hospitals becoming overwhelmed during the winter months, vulnerable NHS out-patients are at risk of severe illness through poorly heated homes Energy Systems Catapult worked with Performa IT to develop a product to identify vulnerable patients, provide them with energy credits and link them up with installers of energy efficiency measures in their homes. After trials in Gloucestershire, North East England and Scotland the Salesforce-based product is ready to be offered to NHS trusts nationwide.
Challenge
- 1. Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) is a not-for-profit organisation bringing together stakeholders from industry, government and academia to collaborate on projects and developments in the energy sector. Its remit is to respond to society’s most pressing energy needs by harnessing technology, knowledge, financial resources and practical skills to improve energy provision for the UK population.
2. Meeting the energy needs of vulnerable people
3. Recognising the health risks of poorly heated homes to afflicted and vulnerable individuals in low- income households, ESC identified an opportunity to assist NHS Trusts in providing energy-related support to patients prone to respiratory infection through chronic pulmonary disorders.
“This is a preventative approach, identifying vulnerable patients and offering them energy credits orenergy efficiency measures for their homes.
“It requires joining up numerous stakeholders, including NHS trusts, patients, energy providers and local networks of trades businesses to install or carry out efficiency measures in low-income homes.”
Given their track record of mediation between a wide cross-section of stakeholder groups, ESC were ideally placed to lead the Warm Homes Prescription initiative.
A transformative journey
Nevertheless, as Venkat explains, ESC had to overcome some significant challenges of its own to get the initiative off the ground.
“Not only did we have to identify and deploy the most accessible and cost-effective platform for maximum scalability, we also had to shift our way of working,” he says.
“Historically ESC is more project- than product development-focused. We had a very top-down approach to requirements analysis, but Warm Homes Prescription required much more careful consideration of the problems and blockages to be faced.”
Since ESC is an established Salesforce licence-holder, Venkat and his team advocated for this to be the digital tool of choice.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
ESC’s SMEs and technical leads are highly in demand, juggling lots of different applications, projects and research programmes.
“We did not have any dedicated SME resource for Warm Homes. Given their busy schedule our SMEs had limited time to contribute to our programme and provide feedback,” Venkat explains.
“We had to devise mutually beneficial ways to engage their support most productively, without causing them any onerous work,” says Venkat.
Warm Homes Prescription Solution
Venkat and his team seemed to have an uphill battle on their hands.
“We really did start from quite a negative place within our organisation,” admits Venkat. “So it’s all credit to Performa IT as our Salesforce implementation partner that we have achieved as much as we have,” says Venkat.
“Warm Homes Prescription is an innovative B2B2C digital platform that unites NHS trusts, their vulnerable patients, energy providers and local installers.
“It is an important way of safe-guarding chronically ill patients, and ensuring acute NHS services are protected.”
Describing the three key pillars for success of the Warm Homes solution Venkat says:
“With Performa IT we had the right people to do this job.
“Not only did they bring a lot of clarity to the required customisations within the Salesforce platform, they were also adaptable enough to meet some unreasonable expectations and conduct build activities to pre-empt bureaucratic time-scales.
“Performa proved themselves to have all the right levers within the team to anticipate design and process definitions and objections. They are also highly proficient in acknowledging cultural differences across different stakeholder groups and doing what it takes to get work approved and completed.”
Process
Commenting on Performa IT’s role in helping ESC shift their project approach Venkat says:
“We needed quicker interactions between the developers and the stakeholders to define the business case, analyse requirements, and get approvals. Performa IT helped us work within extremely tight timescales to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that NHS trusts could start using as simply and inexpensively as possible.”
“As well as clearly defining the solution processes, Performa IT were extremely helpful in creating the right product development processes,” says Venkat.
“Using collaboration tools such as Confluence and JIRA, and daily stand-up meetings, Performa took the lead in defining and implementing process management.
“Respecting our SMEs’ time and availability and anticipating what they needed in order to guide and advise us, Performa were proactive in providing as much up-front information, pre-reads and recommendations as possible to them.
“Performa are adept at visualising processes based on discussions and are also able to provide informed estimates for Statements of Work.”
Technology
Despite initial objections to the use of Salesforce as the digital tool, the benefits of the platform could not be overlooked.
Explaining these, Venkat says: “Salesforce provided us with a secure and scalable data model, a high user base, powerful dashboards and strong compliance with data security regulations.
“NHS trusts and energy advisors already work on Salesforce, so familiarity is an additional benefit,” Venkat adds.
To tackle the licensing problem Performa IT recommended Salesforce’s Partner Portal as the main engine of the solution. Commenting on this choice Performa IT’s Business Analyst Charles Pourieux says:
“Partner Portal does have some limitations, but it is a more cost-effective approach to licensing and is beneficial in the not-for-profit sector.
“Working closely with Venkat we were able to identify the correct permissions for different end users, making sure they had the level of functionality they needed and were not overwhelmed. This is important in on-boarding.”
Charles adds: “We were also able to find an efficient approach to data-sharing by region rather than setting up lots of rules for public groups. This reduces onboarding time by 75%.”
Another important factor in choosing Salesforce lay in ESC’s long-term relationship with Performa IT since 2018.
“Performa knew our business and its complexity,” says Venkat. “They are also a very flexible and capable group of Salesforce professionals. They quickly understood what the Warm Homes initiative demanded and were keen to help us solve the associated problems and challenges.
“Performa IT’s knowledge of Salesforce, its architecture, licensing and customisation potential provided critical input to the value proposition we needed to present to our stakeholders,” he adds.
With the right people, processes and technology in place ESC delivered working MVP trials in Gloucestershire, the Tees Valley and in Aberdeenshire between 2021 and 2023.
Looking into the Future
Venkat is proud to announce that following stakeholder demos, feedback and additional improvements Warm Homes Prescription is ready to be rolled out to NHS trusts nationwide.
“With Performa’s help we are looking at integrating more systems and automating processes as much as possible,” he says.
Additionally with interest from the Treasury and government policy makers, there is a strong possibility that Warm Homes Prescription will be enfolded in nationwide policy.
Recommendation
Recommending Performa IT Venkat says: “For such a complex and constrained project Performa IT demonstrated keen situational awareness, leadership and a strong ability to apply their knowledge and expertise.
“They certainly rose to the challenge and played a crucial part in delivering a solution that could help thousands of vulnerable people.”
Performa IT says
“It is a privilege to play a part in delivering such an important solution for the National Health Service and vulnerable people.
“It is also a fabulous showcase for the adaptability and potential of the Salesforce platform to deliver digital solutions outside the sponsor’s enterprise.”
More on the warm homes project here.