News Archive 2015
Time to celebrate
Gerry Hodgson, Dec 2015
Twice a year we gather the whole team together to look at what we've achieved so far and what we're planning to do over the next six months. It's particularly important for an organisation like ours where team members are based in different parts of the UK and internationally (it's also a great excuse for a night out!).
On the agenda this time was an in-depth look at IoT which included an interactive demo from Krish. He showed how our system is able to take information from different types of movement sensors to create a live dashboard of information.
Other highlights for me included: Will and Nigel talking though how we are expanding the database marketing options we can offer to clients through Communicate Online, and Craig reviewing the training courses and workshops he ran last year and showing us how DISC profiling is going to enable the teams he works with to perform even more effectively next year.
Our goal remains, as always, to bring you innovative products that will transform your business backed up with fantastic customer service.
I would like to wish all our customers and every member of the Cascade3d team a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.
With very best wishes
Gerry
TSA Conference - inspiring change and progress
Gerry Hodgson, Nov 2015
We've just returned from two very interesting days with our colleagues at the TSA. I particularly enjoyed the panel debates, chaired by Paul Burstow, which considered how Government policies are impacting the adoption of digital health and Technology Enabled Care Services (TECS) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Panel members included:
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Deborah McNeilly, Deputy Secretary, Healthcare Policy Group, Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS)
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Beverley Bryant, Director of Digital Technology, NHS England
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Ifan Evans, Deputy Director, Healthcare Technology & Innovation, Welsh Government
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George Crooks, Medical Director, NHS 24
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Paul Rice, Head of Technology Strategy, NHS England
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Steve Vaughan, Manager, Integration Team, Welsh Government
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Eddie Ritson, Programme Director, Centre for Connected Health & Social Care
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Alistair Hodgson, Policy Lead, Digital Health & Care, Scottish Government
There was a lot of interest in our Connected Care platform and in the work we are doing with partners such as Intel and MimoCare.
Cascade Connected Care - the new name in mHealth
Gerry Hodgson, Nov 2015
We're at the 7th annual mHealth Summit in Washington, DC, which is part of the HIMSS Connected Health Conference.
The aim of the Summit is to put a new emphasis on innovation and the power it holds to engage and connect people – anytime, anywhere.
We're here with Intel and a range of other partners to showcase innovative mobile and connected health solutions including Cascade Connected Care, our own mHealth platform.
Webinar
Craig Campbell, Oct 2015
Join us for a webinar on Wednesday 4th November and find out how to use dashboards to take control of your business. For more information click here.
TSA Board Meeting
Gerry Hodgson, Oct 2015
I'm at the TSA Service & Technology Development Steering Board Meeting today, which is being held at BT's Global Research and Development Headquarters in Ipswich. We will be discussing the role of Internet of Things in healthcare and how we can take technology enabled care to the next level using products like Cascade Connected Care.
Retention workshops
Craig Campbell, Oct 2015
The retention workshops got off to a flying start with some brilliant events at Thornbury and Hemel Hempstead last week
There are still a few places available on the following dates so let me know ASAP if you would like to come along and find out how to keep more members for longer.
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Thursday 15th October (Scotland) - Barrhead Foundry
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Wednesday 21st October (Midlands) - Abraham Darby Sports & Leisure Centre, Telford
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Tuesday 27th October (North) - John Charles Centre for Sport, Leeds
All sessions run from 9.30am – 3pm. Lunch is included and there will be plenty of opportunities to network with fellow leisure industry professionals.
TSA conference
Gerry Hodgson, Sep 2015
I'm at St James' Park in Newcastle this month. Not to watch the football but at the TSA's Commissioning for Technology Enabled Care conference.
We're working with NHS England to look at ways of achieving greater integration and innovation across health, housing and social care at a local level. It's an excellent opportunity to showcase our Connected Care platform and FlexiForms for healthcare.
Book your place
Craig Campbell, Sep 2015
Did you know that, on average, the leisure industry loses over 60% of its members every year?
If you're struggling to retain customers, come along to one of our exclusive events this October to find out how to put the plug back in and stop members (and their money) draining away.
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Tuesday 6th October (South West) - Thornbury Leisure Centre
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Wednesday 7th October (South East) - Sportspace Hemel Hempstead
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Thursday 15th October (Scotland) - Barrhead Foundry
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Wednesday 21st October (Midlands) - Abraham Darby Sports & Leisure Centre, Telford
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Tuesday 27th October (North) - John Charles Centre for Sport, Leeds
All sessions run from 9.30am – 3pm. Lunch is included and there will be plenty of opportunities to network with fellow leisure industry professionals. To book your place, please contact us
How IoT is changing the world
Gerry Hodgson, Aug 2015
We were thrilled to be featured in a recent keynote speech by Doug Davis, senior VP and General Manager of loT at Intel.
Doug was speaking at SEMICON West 2015 in San Francisco, USA and used the work we are doing with MimoCare to demonstrate how “the Internet of Things has the capacity to solve the greatest social and business challenges of our time.”
We come in at around 18:40 but it's definitely worth watching the whole video.
Top of the class!
Gerry Hodgson, Aug 2015
Many congratulations to our Corporate Marketing Manager, Clare Flanagan, who can now add an AS Level in Creative Writing to her list of qualifications.
Clare achieved 94% for coursework and 100% in the exam!
In terms of improvements, our customers told us that they would like all their IT suppliers to work more closely together to co-ordinate upgrades. So, we are creating a process to make that happen more smoothly in future.
They also told us that the initial product training was great, but they didn't always feel confident passing their knowledge on to colleagues. So, we will be developing more online resources over the next few months including short training videos. We are also looking at ways of making it easier to book in a training day for a new starter (or a quick refresh via webinar).
Thank you to Suzi Davis for carrying out the research for us and to all the customers who gave up their time to share their views. And, of course, a big thank you to the team here at Cascade3d for working so hard to deliver such a fantastic service!
If you have any comments about our products and services that you would like to share please let us know.
Commissioning for Technology Enabled Care
Gerry Hodgson, Jul 2015
I'm at the Royal College of Medicine this month with the TSA and NHS England for a one day event. We are looking at how Technology Enabled Care can help commissioners achieve better integrated and innovative health and social care systems at a local level.
During the event we'll be discussing:
- The challenges Health and Care are likely to face over the next few years
- The implications for commissioners and providers
- What action is required on key areas including procurement, data sharing and setting standards
- The latest technologies designed to revolutionise health and social care
To find out more about our vision for a connected future, click here.
What do you think?
Gerry Hodgson, Jul 2015
We independently survey our customers every three months to find out
what they think. Here's some of the fantastic feedback we received.
On our software:
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“Can’t live without it. You need to be able to get the data fast and react to it. So I’d recommend it. It brings a lot of systems together in one place, which is exactly what we are looking to do”
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“I’ve got no faults with it, it’s the one system that I can say is excellent. It’s very rare that you get something like that – especially with a software package. It’s really, genuinely excellent “
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“It’s a very powerful tool and it gives you an instant insight in to how your business is performing and how you can improve. And it all comes with great support”
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“I’d impress on people its flexibility – you can design your reports anyway you like. It's a proper drag and drop tool that you can just build our reports up very intuitively. Ease of use is its big selling point.”
And on our service:
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“Craig is just so good. He is just so keen and if you ever need anything he is there to help you. Can’t fault him at all.
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“Paul and the other support staff are really good. They are proactive, they respond really quickly and they don’t leave you in the lurch. They always get back to you”
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“Regular WebEx meetings with Matthew, Nigel and Nathan, catch-ups, the response times – everything happens within a day or so”
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"Will has given us the understanding – he uses basic terms that everyone understands”
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“Dawn-Anne is great at getting things to move on. She is always pushing IT for us. She’s really good”
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“The partnership between us and Cascade to produce what we need is what we rate highly. Gerry knows what we are talking about as soon as we sit down and start the conversation”
Connected Future
Gerry Hodgson, Jul 2015
Imagine a future where everything’s connected. Where we can use IoT to link data from the home to data from wearables. Where devices such as fire alarms can stream life-saving information directly to the cloud. Our vision is a world where this technology can be used to connect family and friends, GPs and patients, hospitals and care providers, emergency services and social services to create a smarter, safer world for us all. And it might be closer than you think.
We're featured on the @IntelHealth blog this month in an article about how the Internet of Things is helping to shift the focus in healthcare from cure to prevention and how big data analytics will totally revolutionise the way healthcare services are coordinated.
We're very pleased to be working with Intel on this project, they've given us some fantastic support and I can't wait to see what the next six months will bring. Watch this space!
Health + Care 2015
Sharon Weeks, Jun 2015
We're showcasing MimoCare and our ideas for a Connected Future at the largest event for health and care professionals in the UK. There are over 300 speakers sharing innovation and best practice with the aim of bringing down the barriers between health and social care.
Services are being re-modelled and integrated with a view to improving their efficiency and quality. This will have a significant impact on how commissioners, care providers, clinicians, social care and public health professionals work in the future.
Speakers include the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health and the Rt Hon Andy Burnham, Shadow Secretary of State for Health.
Scottish Telecare and Telecare Learning Network Event
Sharon Weeks, Jun 2015
We're at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh today discussing Technology Enabled Care. The conference is subtitled: Supporting Transition, Integration and Innovation and we're meeting representatives from NHS24, The Telecare Services Association and the Joint Improvement Team. Our aim is to make sure that big data is not just small talk and we want to see some real progress being made over the next few months in using data analytics to transform health outcomes. We'll keep you posted!
CIMSPA Scotland
Gerry Hodgson, Jun 2015
A quick pic from CIMSPA! Dawn-Anne and I took part in a digital marketing workshop at The Peak, Stirling Sports Village on 3rd June with CIMSPA members from across Scotland and our partners Big Wave Media. We were discussing how to use insight from websites and social media platforms to enhance future marketing campaigns and increase participation levels in exercise and wellbeing programmes.
'Visualise your Business' workshop update
Dawn-Anne McAneny, May 2015
The latest round of FREE workshops has now come to an end. Over the last few weeks we've travelled around the UK, met over 100 delegates and shared lots of best practice ideas to help them see what's really going on in their businesses. Our last session was held on 28th May at Tollcross International Swim Centre in Glasgow and it was great to see so many of our customers (as well as lots of new faces) enjoying the workshop and making the most of networking time with colleagues from across the leisure industry. Copies of the slides from the workshop presentations are available here.
We offer a range of other training courses including Sales Training, Customer Care and Leadership. We will be running more FREE workshops in future so please watch this space!
Craig in action at a recent Business Visualisation workshop in Barnsley
Jackie Marshall-Balloch - one of the inspiring speakers at LTCR Live
Big Data and the Care Revolution
Gerry Hodgson, Jun 2015
I had a fantastic couple of days in Edinburgh at the Long Term Care Revolution Live event. There were lots of inspiring speakers included Jackie Marshall-Balloch, Programme Lead at Innovate UK (pictured here). I was keen to demonstrate how big data can be used to show macro and micro trends in health, giving care providers much greater predictability and enabling them to manage staffing levels, services and costs.
Cascade3d is already partnering with Intel, Trusts, Councils, Care Providers and the TSA to make it happen and it was great to see that there is a real appetite to transform long term care outcomes by making best use of all the new technology.
Find out more about the Long Term Care Revolution Live event
A few images from the show!
Going global
Gerry Hodgson, Apr 2015
I've been in Chicago recently showcasing MimoCare at the largest healthcare exhibition in the world.
Each year HiMSS brings together 35,000 healthcare and IT professionals from across the USA, Europe and the rest of the world for four days of education, innovation and professional networking. We were there as guests of Intel - with a dedicated spot on their exhibition stand.
We've been working closely with Intel to launch MimoCare in the UK and HiMSS gave us a fantastic opportunity to talk to a much wider audience. The US healthcare market may be different to the UK model but there is the same drive to support elderly and vulnerable people to live in their own homes for as long as possible.
To find out more about our work with Intel's Ignition Lab please contact us.
Congratulations!
Gerry Hodgson, Apr 2015
Our analytics guru, Nathan Hobbs, has just qualified as a Microsoft Certified Professional, strengthening our capabilities in SQL Server Analytics.
Nathan plays a lead role in developing cloud and mobile technologies at Cascade3d and he brings incredible depth of knowledge to solution design. Well done Nathan!
Welcome to the team!
Clare Flanagan, Mar 2015
We're thrilled to welcome Krishna Iyengar to the Cascade3d team. Krish joins us as a software engineer and brings with him a huge amount of experience in the healthcare, mobile and telecoms sectors.
Krish will be leading the development strategy for the Mimo telecare product range and our embedded and mobile platforms.
Finding it hard to visualise your leisure business?
Craig Campbell, Feb 2015
If you are finding it hard to visualise what’s happening in your business, we can help. We’ve spoken to over 100 customers across the public, private, trust and university sectors to find out how they want to use their data in future – and we would love to share the results with you.
Call Craig on 07730 217377 to find out more about our exclusive events this April and to book your ticket.
· Wednesday 15th April – Sandwell (Midlands)
· Thursday 16th April - Barnsley (North)
· Wednesday 22nd April – Broxbourne (South)
All sessions run from 10am – 3pm. Lunch is included and there will be plenty of opportunities to network with fellow leisure industry professionals. Hope to see you there!
Get more from your Cascade3d software
Clare Flanagan, Jan 2015
We're very proud of the quality of training on offer from Cascade3d.
As well as Craig's range of specialist courses (see here for details), we also offer product training to help you get the most out of your Cascade3d software and really bring your data to life. So, well done to Will for this great bit of feedback from a training course he ran recently in East Anglia.
"As an ICT person, I've attended countless courses over the years and can honestly say that this was one of the most enjoyable. Not just because the subject matter interests me anyway but because Will delivered it with humour, knowledge and exactly the right amount of trainee interaction."
If you could do with a refresher course on your Cascade3d software or you have a new starter who needs to get up to speed please contact-us@cascade3d.com to book a training day.
Leisure: New skills for the New Year
Craig Campbell, Jan 2015
Happy New Year everyone!
January is the busiest time of year in the leisure and fitness industry and I hope you will be signing up lots of lovely new members over the next few weeks.
Unfortunately, being so busy can also expose any weak spots in your team's skills - whether it's a lack of customer care, poor sales technique or a lacklustre approach to planning classes and fitness programmes.
Well, don't despair, I'm here to help. We offer a huge range of courses and workshops to help each member of your team be the best they can possibly be. Take a look at the list here or just give me a call to find out more. Our training courses receive consistently good feedback - here are just a few comments from one I ran last month (thank you very much to everyone who came along).
"Craig was absolutely amazing. Possibly one of the best trainers/teachers I've come across"
"It was the best training day I have ever been on"
"I would definitely recommend this session to others"
Contact us to find out more.