The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is overhauling its online membership platform, helping to connect its 400, 000 global members with a simplified and mobile friendly platform.
The world’s largest professional union of nursing staff has partnered with software development consultancy Box UK to overhaul its entire digital platform by reorganising the vast number of website pages and disparate channels to create a single, integrated system.
With a community of more than 400,000 nurses globally, and with statistics revealing there are more mobile devices in the world than people, the RCN requires a digital platform that provides its members with a mobile-first community resource that is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and a user experience that embodies ease of use.
Paul Newman, head of IT at the Royal College of Nursing, says, “We are responsible for representing the nursing sector while promoting best practice and shaping health polices and it is therefore crucial our online platform reflects this.
“Our current portal is built on old, fragmented legacy systems. Over time, the site has become cluttered and difficult to navigate. We want our members and other visitors to be able to find content easily and to be offered news, policies and clinical information that match their interests. Box UK has already carried out a ‘quick start’ process to determine performance and prioritise the digital transformation.
“Box UK won the tender process due to its innovative, engaging and creative approach. We are confident the team’s experience and expertise will ensure the new platform allows us to meet our core objective for this project – to innovate digitally and strengthen member engagement.”
Using an agile approach to the project, Box UK is able to understand motivations, helping to ensure the membership portal is more user aligned. Due to the amount of content on the system, Box UK and the RCN agreed on a ‘define and refine’ approach to create an interesting, accessible and informative platform, resulting in a better online journey.
Benno Wasserstein, managing director of Box UK, says, “Working on such an influential, digital transformation project to create a cutting edge platform has been an exciting prospect for us.
“We are now seeking input and feedback from users to ensure the site encourages a vibrant and active community before the official launch later this year.”
Paul concludes, “Our plans for digital transformation are ambitious, but after 18 months of hard work and a significant amount of investment, we are pleased to say the prototype will be ready for members to review at our congress in June, highlighting how we have delivered on our promise for a platform that fully supports our online community. The platform will integrate with our new customer relationship management system which goes live in August, providing members with a seamless online service
“I believe we are setting the benchmark in the industry and when the site goes live, we will be taking an important step forward ahead of our centenary year in 2016.”