Software

How Online Resources Help Healthcare Systems Move to Microsoft Teams

With a July 31 end date for Skype for Business, Microsoft offers support to change videoconferencing platforms.

Nathan Eddy works as an independent filmmaker and journalist based in Berlin, specializing in architecture, business technology and healthcare IT. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

With Skype for Business set to retire on July 31, many healthcare organizations may need to start thinking about moving to a new videoconferencing systems, such as Microsoft Teams.

The software giant has deployed a number of resources to help smooth the transition, including upgrade planning workshops; free, instructor-led training; and FastTrack onboarding assistance.

Ed McCallister, who completed the Skype-to-Teams transition in 2019 as CIO for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says it’s important to train employees and communicate effectively to make the change happen smoothly.

Most healthcare organizations have a diverse range of end users, from corporate professionals to doctors, nurses and operational teams, so it helps to craft strategies that address each group’s unique needs. Developing an overall change management plan and conducting “road shows” for users throughout the organization can help, McCallister said.

“My best tip for making the transition from Skype to Teams is to know your users and build initial communications and training materials around the functionality they use today,” he said. “Making a ‘cheat sheet’ that draws connections between the old tool and the new one will really put end users at ease, even if the changes seem obvious to IT.”

Planning Workshops Help with Teams Transition

Microsoft is offering a series of hourlong, interactive upgrade planning workshops that provide best practices and share key migration considerations. The “Plan Your Upgrade” sessions, available now through March 17, are aimed at a wide audience of stakeholders.

“Those workshops seem like they could be helpful for any organization that isn’t sure how to get started with the upgrade,” McCallister pointed out.

Microsoft is also offering free, live online training, starting with a Teams knowledge check to help users find the right class with which to begin. On-demand end-user training is supported by six YouTube videos ranging in length from 16 minutes to more than an hour. The final video is dedicated solely to making the switch.

“These classes can help healthcare organizations by augmenting the other training and communication materials sent to users as part of the transition to Teams,” McCallister said. “It would be nearly impossible for IT staff alone to train everyone working different shifts across multiple hospitals or business units.”

Microsoft’s FastTrack Can Facilitate the Move to Teams

Like the upgrade planning workshops, FastTrack can assist with formulating a game plan to tackle the migration, but McCallister noted that getting the most mileage out of this resource depends on an organization’s current environment.

The FastTrack service is available for free to customers with eligible subscriptions to Microsoft 365, Azure or Dynamics 365. It includes curated Microsoft 365 self-guided resources, an adoption kit with templates and additional adoption tools.

“FastTrack may be especially useful if you’re also trying to migrate file shares to Teams, but I recommend focusing on the direct replacement of Skype first so users don’t feel overwhelmed by all the change,” McCallister said.

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