Medway pilots business intelligence from McKesson

Senior staff at Medway NHS Trust are piloting McKesson’s Horizon Business Insight solution in order to extract performance information at the click of a button.

The system has been widely deployed across the US, and McKesson have been working with Medway to configure it to meet the needs of the English NHS. The system, known as HBI, provides senior staff members with immediate access to vital data from across the organisation.

Jane Broman, director of business process at McKesson, told E-Health Insider: “Medway are in the process of applying for foundation trust status and they wanted an easier way to provide documented statistics for the public to look at. Previously, data was collated in a number of spreadsheets, and was difficult to make sense from. With HBI, they will be able to have data from all systems on one screen, easily sortable.”

HBI allows quick access to summarised information that can be subsequently further investigated for a more detailed analysis. Managers are presented with ‘scorecards’ that provide a high level view of key data. This simple format allows them to keep an accurate track of items as they are addressed and rectified.

The ‘traffic light’ feature also acts as a proactive prevention tool and alerts managers to those items that need attention – detailed information of which is then immediately available when the item is selected.

Broman said: “Medway have been working with us on this project since 31 March and have been helping us build content on it to meet the requirements of the NHS. It is currently being used by four subject matter experts and the director of finance at the trust, and by the end of the year, we hope to extend this to other senior users and superusers in the trust.”

Typically managers have to monitor organisational performance over a number of areas, including strategy, finance, efficiency, workforce, patient experience, clinical quality, access and targets.

Efficient monitoring of resources and speedy response to urgent alerts are becoming increasingly vital elements in the successful management of trusts. Charmaine McDonald, managing director at McKesson, comments: “Trusts need access to information that gives an up to date picture so that problems can be identified early enough to remedy.

“With HBI, managers can set achievement levels for each area specified on the system and anything not marked by either a tick or a green light is identified as worthy of investigation. HBI is also flexible in allowing remote monitoring; once the system identifies something out of the ordinary, an email is sent to the manager to flag the issue.”

Trust officials have been observing the new system, and are keen to take it on board later this month.

Broman said: “The director of finance loves the new system. At the touch of a button, he can drill down to particular levels much faster and to a higher level. He can pinpoint where improvements need to be made across the trust and focus on key targets such as the 18 weeks wait.”

HBI can incorporate data from most systems and in different formats, such as HTML or Text, but ideally, data is incorporated through direct database connections, making it available to managers through a single point of access.

Tano Rebora, VP sales and marketing of McKesson UK, said: “The success of this pilot is bound to generate interest from all kinds of trusts, especially as we move into a period where the NHS becomes more target-driven. We look forward to working with trusts to implement HBI in the new year.”

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Joe Fernandez