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MillimeterHarvard Pilgrim Health Care training rooms updated with interactive whiteboards
Sep 22, 2004 3:10 PM
In order to keep pace with its growing membership and expanding network of providers, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), New England’s oldest nonprofit health plan, needed to completely update its eight training rooms, with special emphasis on introducing the latest technology.
As HPHC’s facilities manager, James Connolly knew all too well the challenges he faced with integrating technology into a new room design. Aside from the design issues, Connolly also had a big concern with the ever-changing technology: What happened if HPHC bought the latest products today and then something even better came out tomorrow?
The older training rooms had workstations that consisted of folding tables with PCs on top, and each room had a portable LCD projector and pull-down screen, which were manually controlled by the instructor. “The time had definitely come to update our training rooms,” Connolly said. “The nature of our growing business required facilities with more multi-functional use to address a variety of internal needs.”
Within the technology package for these rooms, Connolly wanted to include interactive whiteboard capabilities, but he didn’t want to run up against the barriers he had experienced with previous boards, such as having to learn new software, use dedicated PCs, or “pound” touch-sensitive boards to get them to work.
In order to move HPHC’s training rooms into the next generation, Connolly turned to Office Environments of New England (OENE) to help integrate the technology with the vision for the room design. OENE's Jim Hartford was able to leverage the partnerships between PolyVision and OENE to create a high comfort level for Connolly and to design state-of-the-art training rooms for HPHC.
“Our relationship with PolyVision allowed us to bring an innovative technology solution to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care that was backed by a company with a strong, industry-leading reputation,” said Hartford. “HPHC was comforted to know that if the technology did change, then any subsequent updates would be an easy integration without a huge fee.”
Ultimately, PolyVision’s Impulse LTX Multimedia Whiteboards were placed in each of the training rooms, dispersed between two facilities on the headquarters’ campus. The multimedia whiteboards were chosen because the trainers were looking for a sizable interactive whiteboard unit with next-generation functionality that was easy to use (eliminating the need to “train the trainer”).
HPHC now has technologically advanced multi-functional rooms. The rooms, each with a 20-person capacity, are constantly booked throughout each day for internal training sessions.
After six months of use, Connolly said the boards are meeting and exceeding the trainers' expectations. Even the less tech-savvy trainers are starting to venture outside of the board’s basics and take advantage of its total functionality. Instructors can now capture and distribute notes, manipulate projected images, and annotate on the whiteboard screen.
When comparing the Impulse LTX with his previous interactive whiteboard experience, Connolly noted that with numerous PCs no longer cluttering the training table surfaces, the Impulse LTX allows instructors to use the rooms for both hard- and soft-skilled training sessions. In addition, trainers now have the freedom to move about the room and interact with students instead of being stuck at the board or a PC. "The Impulse LTX eliminates the need to be connected to something (PC or projector) to do anything," Connolly said.
The Impulse LTX Multimedia Whiteboard has renewed Connolly’s belief in the benefits of using interactive whiteboards within a corporate environment, and convinced him that he chose the right solution for the company’s ever-changing technology needs.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.