NHS organisations are now genuinely dependant on their information technology. Where once it helped them improve the efficiency of the administrative areas of the organisation, now it is central to the delivery of care.
Patients and staff depend on the IT systems and infrastructure, so those systems need to have a high degree of sophistication in the way they are managed . NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) has developed the NHS Infrastructure Maturity Model (NIMM) as a tool to allow trusts to assess their infrastructure and associated processes. The NIMM is closely modelled on Gartner’s model and the Infrastructure Optimisation model developed by Microsoft. Today most NHS organisations operate at level 1 and 2. There are compelling reasons for achieving 3 or above against the model. CfH has developed tools and guidance to assist trusts develop a roadmap for creating a more mature and managable IT environment and so progress through the maturity model. We can support trusts with understanding NIMM and engaging the right technologies and partners to achieve their maturity goals. NIMM has also been linked to allocation of Enterprise client access licences (ECALs), which unlock many of teh advanced features of the Microsoft technologies provided under the NHS Enterprise Agreement (EA). Crucially, this includes many of the important components of SharePoint, including advanced business intelligence, high volume search, browser based electronic forms and the business data catalogue, as well as Office Communications Server, SCOM and the voice components of Exchange 2007. We can assist with understanding the process for requesting ECALs from CfH.
NIMM Design Goals
Some of the high level design goals driving the development of the NIMM are that it should:
- be simple and intuitive to use written in “plain English”
- be calibrated to be most relevant for the NHS
- be technology and vendor independent
- consider both technical and management aspects of IT infrastructure provision
- take into account of any significant dependencies between infrastructure capabilities to highlight what the primary & secondary effects of change may be
- have clear ownership and be easily maintainable by the NHS as it’s needs and priorities change
- be modular in the use of maturity levels, recognising that an organisations IT infrastructure capabilities will be at different levels of maturity
- be easily customisable to allow deployment groups to use the model to create profiles of capabilities needed for different services to be deployed
- usable in a descriptive and prescriptive mode to accelerate adoption
- recognise that it will constantly evolve and business needs change and technology evolves
According to many respected analysts, a typical organisation will spend around 70% of it’s IT budget on “running the organisation” (defined as applications maintenance & infrastructure), leaving 30% of the budget for initiatives that change or “improve the organisation”.
With so much resource allocated to infrastructure it is surprising that the potential impact that IT infrastructure is often not fully appreciated or even planned. Infrastructure tends to be viewed as those transparent services and capabilities that we all take for granted.
