From Infrastructure to Experience – Questions I’m Taking to HIMSS and Enterprise Connect

Authored by Tom Boyle, Director, Mitel User Group Board of Directors

In March I’m excited to be attending both HIMSS and Enterprise Connect in the US in my role as Executive Director of Mitel’s Global User Group. It will be my first major set of events in the role, and it comes at a time when the expectations placed on communication in healthcare are changing quickly. 

The focus is no longer simply on platforms or infrastructure. Yes, that still matters, and the telecoms geek in me is looking forward to talking PBXs, copper and cloud (in that order!). But recent times call for a deeper understanding of how communication shapes experience and, ultimately, perceptions of care. Advertising a switchboard number and relying on one-way SMS reminder platforms is no longer enough. 

My view, at least from the outside looking in, is that US healthcare appears further ahead than we are in the UK in deliberately designing this layer. I am interested in whether that is driven by the more private, commercial and competitive nature of the US system. 

In the UK, the elective backlog has only amplified this shift. As waiting lists have grown, patient contact behaviour has changed. Demand on communication systems has increased sharply. The days of simply “increasing the pipes” are long gone. Extending queues without additional staff does not improve experience, and in the current NHS climate significant workforce expansion is not a realistic lever. 

So the question becomes less about capacity and more about design. 

I am travelling with a working perception that US healthcare places more deliberate emphasis on engineered communication journeys, particularly at the front door. I am also experienced enough to recognise that this may be an incomplete view. 

The purpose of these events, for me, is to test that assumption properly. 

I am also looking forward to the conversations around it. Mitel have been clear that part of my role is not just to represent customers, but to challenge and bring perspective from the UK healthcare environment into the room. That feels important. There is a genuine curiosity – both about what is happening internationally and about what might translate back into practical improvements for customers. For me, this is as much about learning as it is about contributing. 

The Experience Layer 

Where I am most curious is what sits between infrastructure and perception. 

In the UK, infrastructure and patient experience are often treated as adjacent conversations rather than one joined-up strategy. Yet the digital front door shapes the entire perception of care long before a clinician is involved. Brits do not necessarily mind waiting. What frustrates us is uncertainty. We want to know what is happening and when. 

Other industries have mastered expectation management. Look at hospitality – the queue is still there, but it is visible, structured and communicated. Alternative routes exist depending on need. Updates are proactive rather than reactive. 

In healthcare, we are not always that deliberate. Too often, communication is event-driven rather than journey-led. A letter goes out. A reminder is sent. A call is answered. But the overall flow is rarely designed end to end. 

My question at HIMSS and Enterprise Connect is simple: are US organisations genuinely designing communication journeys as systems, or are they optimising individual touchpoints? 

Infrastructure, Resilience and Reality 

At the same time, I fully appreciate that none of this works without resilient foundations. 

Hospitals are complex, high-dependency environments. Communications is core infrastructure, not a cosmetic layer. I have always straddled the ‘new school’ and the ‘old school’, so I am open to hybrid approaches. Cloud has a role, particularly in enhancing experience and flexibility. But industry-wide, I would like to see greater focus and R&D investment in the on-premise and hybrid realities of healthcare estates. 

We still have pagers. We still have emergency lines, lift phones and legacy clinical integrations. We still operate across large physical campuses where resilience cannot rely on a single dependency. 

Modernisation matters. So does robustness. The balance between the two is not theoretical in healthcare – it is operational. 

Understanding how US organisations are navigating that balance will be one of the most interesting aspects of these events for me. 

What I Will Be Watching For 

I want to understand how organisations are genuinely connecting infrastructure decisions with experience outcomes. I want to hear from peers about what is working in practice, not just what looks good on a slide. And I want to understand where the commercial realities sit – what customers are actually buying, what they are struggling with, and what suppliers are prioritising. 

I am particularly looking forward to hosting a healthcare executive lunch on the first day of HIMSS alongside Mitel’s CMO – Eric Hanson. Those smaller, candid conversations are often where the most honest insight sits, and we are planning to capture some of those perspectives to share more widely. We will also be holding an industry analyst dinner with Mitel’s CEO Mike Robinson and CTO Luiz Domingos, where I expect the discussion to move beyond product and into direction – what is genuinely working at scale, what is noise, and what might actually translate back into the UK. 

If I am honest, it still feels slightly surreal to have a seat at these tables. Ten years ago, when I first started flirting with telecoms, the idea that someone with an analytics background, no formal engineering pedigree, under the age of 50 and not wearing a suit could be part of those conversations internationally would have felt unlikely. 

I am grateful for the space I have been given to navigate my roles – and this industry – in my own neurodiverse way. My approach is not particularly standard. I do not always look or sound like the traditional leader. But being trusted to get things right, and occasionally wrong, says something about how much this industry is evolving. Collaboration is more open. Different perspectives are welcomed. That feels both useful and overdue. 

Back-office communication may not be frontline healthcare, but it underpins it. When it works well, patients and staff feel it. When it fails, they feel that too. 

If HIMSS and Enterprise Connect showcase what is possible, I am interested in what stands up in practice when complexity, constraint and reality are added. 

I suspect I may return with more questions than answers. 

That would probably be a good sign.