As part of this strategic partnership, ABS has been awarded a five-year, £4.3 million contract for the design, supply and implementation of an Integrated Information Centre which will seamlessly interface with the Trust's existing operational and reporting systems. Comprising IBM's Cognos and Infosphere software and ABS' own software systems, the Integrated Information Centre will be delivered as a fully managed service by ABS' sister company, Advanced 365. This will include the provision of overnight loading of new data from Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys' data repositories and 24/7 service desk support.
Richard Yaldren, Strategic Project Manager at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust explains, "Although these are challenging economic times, it is vital that we invest in leading edge technology to enable us to more effectively target our resources and improve the quality of services for our patients. ABS' highly intuitive and scalable data warehouse solution, managed by Advanced 365, will continuously enhance the Trust's strategic analysis and reporting capabilities whilst supporting the ongoing changing information needs of the Trust."
Tees, Esk and Wear Valley Trust's data is currently held in multiple systems and displayed using Excel spreadsheets, making it extremely time consuming to collate and difficult to compare. With the ABS Integrated Information Centre in place authorised users throughout the Trust will have more timely access to information from a range of data sources from the desktop, significantly improving efficiency. This allows information to be analysed in real-time to understand the needs of the community.
Unlike restrictive 'out of the box' business intelligence systems, the flexibility of ABS' solution will allow the Trust to produce customised reports on all aspects of its performance both now and in the future. It will also enable the Trust to adapt and respond quickly to new information requirements aligned with the strategic priorities for the North East region.
Yaldren comments, "ABS' system, coupled with Advanced 365's managed service, will provide us with a flexible solution that can adapt with the ever-changing needs of the NHS, both now and in the future. With more accurate and timely access to comprehensive information, we will achieve significant time savings by eliminating the need for manual data extraction and the distribution of reports. This will enable key decision makers to easily focus on the health matters that affect our region more deeply, so that appropriate action can be taken to improve the quality of services we deliver."
Dean Dickinson, Managing Director (Public Sector & Enterprise) of Advanced Business Solutions, says, "As budgets within the public sector become increasingly stretched, it is vital for NHS managers to maintain tighter financial control and work with high quality data to guide the decision-making process and improve outcome management. ABS' extensive health sector experience has enabled us to develop a flexible business intelligence solution that will be able to adapt to the ever-changing needs of the NHS. This leading-edge solution also provides them with added-value functionality that delivers instant visibility of their financial and business performance."
About Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust was created in April 2006, following the merger of County Durham and Darlington Priority Services NHS Trust and Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust.
In July 2008 we became the North East's first mental health trust to achieve foundation trust status under the NHS Act 2006. As a foundation trust we are accountable to local people through our council of governors and are regulated by Monitor, the independent regulator of foundation trusts.
We provide a range of mental health, learning disability and substance misuse services for the 1.6 million people living in County Durham, the Tees Valley, Scarborough, Whitby, Ryedale, Harrogate, Hambleton and Richmondshire.
With around 5,700 staff and an annual income of £270m we deliver our services by working in partnership with seven local authorities and primary care trusts, a wide range of voluntary organisations, as well as service users, their carers and the public. The services are spread over a wide geographical area of around 3,600 square miles, which includes coastal, rural and industrial areas.
About Advanced Business Solutions
Advanced Business Solutions (ABS) provides leading integrated business applications and services that enable public, private and third sector organisations to retain control, improve visibility and gain efficiencies whilst continually improving corporate performance. ABS prides itself on getting close to its customers by understanding their businesses and responding to their evolving needs.
ABS's software systems comprise core accounting/financial management, procurement, human resource and payroll systems, integrated with a range of collaborative, document management and business intelligence solutions to extend the value and effectiveness of the finance, human resource and payroll departments, which can also be delivered as a managed or bureau service option.
Customers come from both public and private sectors and include Companies House, Newcastle City Council, WH Smith, Royal Bank of Scotland, Aer Lingus, National Express Group, DFS, RSPB and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust.
Advanced Business Solutions is a division of Advanced Computer Software Group plc, a leading supplier of software and IT services to the health, care and business services sectors.
About Advanced 365
Advanced 365 designs, deploys, operates and improves IT services from the desktop to the data centre, helping customers to align their IT to their core business requirements. Advanced 365 aims to help IT departments free themselves from day to day operational activity to allow them to deliver strategic value back to their business by creating an agile and scalable infrastructure that is closely aligned to their core business operations.
This is achieved by:
- Managed services focusing on the core utility components of customers' IT operations (e.g. monitoring, backup, email and hosting).
- Application development to deliver a fully-supported application managed service for both existing legacy applications and new applications developed by Advanced 365.
- Delivery either as a hosted service managed via the Advanced 365 data centre suite, remotely from customers’ comms rooms, as part of a Cloud-based service via one of the many public Cloud platforms available, or as a hybrid solution utilising a combination of these delivery environments based upon customer requirements.
Advanced 365 is a division of Advanced Computer Software Group plc, a leading supplier of software and IT services to the health, care and business services sectors.