Two leading NHS organisations have come together to launch a new joint vision that will help the health service harness the power of data and technology and address some of the most pressing challenges facing the NHS.
Developed by the NHS for the NHS, HealthIntell is a development between business support provider NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), and business intelligence experts at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL).
HealthIntell is a suite of reporting applications, exclusively for the NHS, that will help NHS organisations address issues such as A&E winter pressures, procurement challenges and financial management.
David Morris, managing director of NHS SBS, said: "HealthIntell gives us the platform to deliver health technology that can provide good care that costs less. Its user-friendly applications support informed decision making across the NHS, and will help make the health service more effective and efficient."
Rob Forster, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust's acting chief executive said: "HealthIntell has huge promise for the NHS as it creates the right tools for the job by using the right people with the right expertise. We are already delivering applications that are making a difference, with more to come."
Among the launch suite of products is the HealthIntell Accident & Emergency (A&E) application. This will help hospitals better cope with A&E pressures and meet waiting time targets by presenting real-time data on attendances in emergency departments to doctors and other decision makers.
The application can predict demand on a daily and hourly basis, and allows trusts to use their own data to identify peaks and troughs - for example the likely rise in attendances due to bad weather or major sporting events.
Already in use at WWL, results delivered include a reduction in the average total length of stay in A&E from 160 minutes in April 2014 to 130 minutes in February 2015 - a drop of 18.75%, which is well within the four hour target that was regularly breached across the NHS in the 2014/15 winter.
Information is presented in areas throughout the trust’s hospitals, including through a large 70” touchscreen installed in A&E, which helps ensure the right members of staff are available to meet demand, and the right numbers of beds available for those patients likely to be admitted.
Rob Forster added: "At WWL we see 280 patients come into A&E every day, of which 60 will need a bed. To cope with this, and adhere to waiting time targets, we realised that having an accurate picture of what is happening is crucial. We can now plan ahead to meet demand."
Further launch products include an award-winning Devolved Financial Management procurement application, which aims to help the NHS with its challenge of managing budgetary constraints.
This application presents budget holders with a simple view of expenditure across the organisation to highlight areas of concern and explain variances to enable a quick response. This is facilitated through features such as heat maps, monthly and yearly account headlines, staffing levels, and amounts of pay and non-pay spend. It also provides the capability, through a single platform, to analyse purchasing information including purchase orders and requisitions, invoices and approvers.
Its dashboard also removes the need to source information from multiple systems as all the data is clearly accessible via one portal. This can help to inform tendering activity, supplier negotiations and spend analysis reports to help make procurement more efficient.
David Morris added: "These are great examples of data-driven healthcare that can be easily understood by frontline clinicians and senior managers alike, and empower them to make meaningful improvements across the hospital and to achieve efficiency savings targets."
The development of the HealthIntell suite of products and collaboration between WWL and NHS SBS, has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Acute Sector Innovation category in this year's HSJ 2015 Awards. The winner will be announced at the HSJ Awards ceremony on 18th November 2015.
About NHS SBS
NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) is the market leader in business support services for the NHS. It provides finance and accounting, employment services, procurement and primary care services, delivering operational efficiencies and improved service quality as well as real cost savings, on average 30%, for its NHS clients. Established in 2005, NHS SBS is a 50/50 joint venture between the Department of Health and Sopra Steria Limited. The organisation now provides financial services to 100% of all NHS commissioning organisations and a range of business support services for around 50% of NHS provider trusts.
NHS SBS currently employs over 1,750 people who bring a unique mix of NHS and commercial expertise. They process over £170 billion of NHS payments each year and pay 390,000 NHS employees. The organisation has also identified more than £350 million procurement savings opportunities. NHS SBS is on-course to achieve £1 billion of cost savings to the NHS by 2020, having achieved its original 10-year target of £224 million of cost savings, a year earlier than planned in 2014.
About WWL
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is a district general hospital. WWL provides services for the local population of over 318,000 and specialist orthopaedic services to a much wider regional, national and international catchment area. There are over 4,600 members of staff, all of whom play their part in delivering high quality, safe and effective patient care.
WWL is committed to designing services around the needs of patients and for patients to be cared for as close to their home as possible. Operating across three hospital sites, a state-of-the-art out-patients centre, a dedicated Eye Unit at the Wigan Health Centre and also working from offices at Buckingham Row in Wigan town centre, the trust has 758 inpatient beds and invests over £220 million each year in a broad range of highly regarded general and specialist acute services.