Capability: Data Services

How a Digital Twin of an Organisation (DTO) leads to continuous improvement

Posted on: 31 October 2024
How a Digital Twin of an Organisation (DTO) leads to continuous improvement

Businesses face ongoing challenges when it comes to inefficient, outdated processes that are difficult to monitor and improve. These inefficiencies result in higher operational costs, slower delivery times and bottlenecks that impact productivity and stakeholder and customer satisfaction. Tracking performance across large and complex organisations can also be challenging, especially when data is scattered and out of date. Traditional performance management approaches are often reactive as well, relying on historical data rather than providing real-time insights. This lack of timely, actionable information makes it difficult to drive continuous improvement and optimise performance across departments. 

So, how does a platform like Mood help organisations enhance their operational processes and performance monitoring capabilities? 

How to enhance operational processes to lead to continuous improvement

When effectively executed, optimised operational processes can have a tremendous impact on an organisation. Organisations need a comprehensive, real-time view of performance across all levels of the business. Therefore, optimising processes requires real-time visibility, the ability to continuously monitor workflows and the relevant tools to identify and resolve inefficiencies. By visualising end-to-end processes and integrating performance data, businesses can drive continuous improvement, reduce costs and enhance service delivery. Integrating performance metrics with live operational data and visualising results in an accessible way will also enable businesses to identify areas for improvement, implement changes quickly and continuously monitor their impact.  

What difference will optimising processes for continuous improvement make for an organisation?

Optimised processes lead to faster operations, lower costs and a more agile organisation. Continuous improvement becomes a core capability, allowing businesses to remain competitive and quickly adapt to change. The nature of DTOs real-time performance monitoring will also lead to faster, data-driven decision-making and more effective continuous improvement initiatives. As a result, an organisation will become more efficient, agile and aligned with strategic goals. This approach will also establish a culture of innovation and an openness to learning across the wider business. 

How Mood helps optimise operational processes for continuous improvement

Mood provides a non-technical, dynamic platform with everything a business needs to create and manage a Digital Twin of an Organisation, providing real-time visibility into every aspect of the process and integrates real-time performance metrics across processes, systems and departments. With integrated analytics and predictive insights, Mood helps identify inefficiencies and enables continuous process optimisation. By modelling potential improvements and implementing changes seamlessly, it also drives operational excellence and ongoing process improvement across the organisation. 

Its customisable dashboards and analytics allow stakeholders to monitor performance in real time and identify areas for improvement. By linking these insights to the broader enterprise architecture and strategic objectives, continuous improvement initiatives will always be aligned with long-term business goals, driving consistent operational excellence. 

To learn more about how Mood can transform your business, speak to one of our experts directly. 

 

How a Digital Twin of an Organisation (DTO) revolutionises strategic decision-making & scenario planning

Posted on: 21 October 2024
How a Digital Twin of an Organisation (DTO) revolutionises strategic decision-making & scenario planning

Organisations often face challenges in strategic decision-making and scenario planning due to fragmented data, siloed operations, and a lack of real-time visibility across departments. This uncertainty complicates planning for change or responding to external disruptions, ultimately blurring the line between strategy and execution. Consequently, decision-makers may face slow responses, missed opportunities, and decisions based on outdated or incomplete information. Without clear insights into the impact of changes, disruptions, inefficiencies, or unintended consequences when implementing new strategies may seem inevitable.

So, how can decision-makers navigate these challenges and how can Mood support them?

How to bolster strategic decision-making & scenario planning

Effective strategic decision-making, scenario planning and change management require the ability to simulate different options and assess their impact on the entire organisation. By visualising dependencies and potential outcomes, businesses can plan and implement changes with greater confidence and minimal risk. 

Organisations need a unified, real-time view of their operations that integrates data from across the business. By connecting strategic goals with operational data, businesses can analyse potential scenarios, simulate outcomes and make informed decisions that align with their long-term objectives. 

Why bolstering strategic decision-making & scenario planning is critical 

Organisations that make a pointed effort to enhance their strategic decision-making will find themselves adapting quicker to everchanging industry conditions, navigating challenges or risks with ease and staying ahead of their competitors. With a comprehensive and real-time understanding of the organisation, faster and more accurate decisions can be made that will improve agility, alignment between strategy and execution and establish a stronger ability to adapt to market changes and internal demands.  

Better scenario planning and change management will also lead to more resilient organisations that can adapt quickly to market shifts or internal changes. Businesses will gain the ability to implement change smoothly, with minimal disruption and maximum impact. 

How Mood enhances strategic decision-making & scenario planning 

Creating and maintaining a DTO would ordinarily require advanced technical expertise, multiple tools, business change and substantial resources. The complexity of integrating various systems and processes into a cohesive digital model can be daunting. Mood alleviates this.  

Mood provides a non-technical, dynamic platform with everything a business needs to create and manage a Digital Twin of an Organisation. It collates data, processes and systems into a single, real-time view and supports detailed scenario planning and change impact analysis by integrating all relevant data, processes and systems into a living digital model.  

By connecting strategic objectives to live operational data, Mood enables scenario planning and simulation, empowering decision-makers to visualise impacts and align initiatives with business goals. With Mood, your organisation can make strategic decisions with confidence and agility, as well as simulate the impact of strategic initiatives, visualise dependencies and assess risks before making decisions. The integration and digitisation of the change management process can also be enabled, ensuring that changes are implemented smoothly, with full visibility into their impact across the organisation. 

Find out how Mood can transform your business by speaking to one of our experts today. 

Why effective project prioritisation in consultancy is crucial

Posted on: 10 October 2024
Why effective project prioritisation in consultancy is crucial

When it comes to consultancy, project prioritisation is critical so that customers receive urgent or important work first before less vital items. In straightforward projects with one product owner and a finite backlog, you can approach this issue by working through the backlog and asking them to label them using MoSCoW, the prioritisation technique used in project management and business analysis to help stakeholders understand the importance of various requirements, for example. It’s when you move to a project with multiple product owners and an ever– extending backlog that the problems appear, however.  

So, what are the common project prioritisation challenges arising in consultancy nowadays and what solutions are available to consultants to solve them? 

Common challenges in consultancy around project prioritisation

Within each project, each stakeholder (this could be from multiple products, multiple product owners or stakeholders without a product owner) will bring their own backlog, each believing that their demands are the most important and that all your resources are theirs to use. Negotiating between these product owners can be difficult, especially as they may have their own deadlines that they’ve committed to, perhaps only needing your resources for part of their project and a delay could cause their entire project not being delivered on time.  

While earlier and clearer communication would undoubtedly help with these issues in the long run, where do consultants start in the meantime? 

How consultants can improve project prioritisation

Consultants that refer to a categorical prioritisation list for each project (such as the example below) will notice immediate and significant improvements. By scoring each project against a list of categories, with the resulting score used to order the backlog and any incoming items, their respective priority and importance will be illustrated to the wider business.  The category list is:  

Once a project has been scored on each of these points, the total score is calculated. This is then used to rank projects against each other. It’s important to reassess the time rating approximately every three months, as this rating will need to be increased to reflect the real-world situation.  

Benefits of this approach

The advantage of adopting this approach is that it enables you to provide an explanation as to why certain projects are higher priority than others rather than using a more subjective approach. It’s possible to add a higher rating to categories so that the calculation better represents the company’s priorities.  

Potential difficulties of this approach

Some of the issues we’ve noticed so far are that these categories don’t necessarily work as well for enabling items such as a pilot, which won’t deliver any benefit to the system on its own but is required before the new feature can be started. To bolster this, we had to consider the ultimate deliverable being enabled, otherwise, the supporting item would score too low.  

 Technical debt is another type of work that doesn’t quite fit into these categories, which is why we ultimately decided to remove it and prioritise it separately.  

 Despite all the categorisation and discussions, you can end up with a list that doesn’t quite correspond with your gut feeling based on market trends. To mitigate this, a review was organised every few months to monitor scoring accuracy.  

Conclusion  

For projects without a finite backlog where upfront prioritisation isn’t possible, this approach allows you to prioritise against existing work in flight. However, it’s important to account for the amount of time, effort and morale downturn it takes to pause and restart.  

This method of prioritisation is ultimately particularly a useful tool for prioritising the constant stream of incoming projects from multiple product owners. The conversations that come out of the prioritisation are also of substantial value, and to some extent, enable the prediction of what will be delivered in the near future.  

To learn more about project prioritisation in consultancy, speak to one of CACI’s experts today. 

What is InView? 

Posted on: 26 July 2023
What is InView? 

InView is CACI’s data platform that is specifically designed for the NHS. It is modular by design with over 30 modules out of the box, and makes data sharing for ICS simple and efficient through its standardisation and safety in data management. The flexibility, maintenance and content provided by a standard data platform built in-house can only go so far. Considering the many pressures faced by NHS Trusts daily, they need a data platform that supports—rather than hinders– them.  

InView empowers NHS Trusts nationwide to enhance their reporting and unlock the potential of their data by ensuring that all data reporting is correct, consistent and complete within a singular integrated solution that will transform patient care outcomes. 

But how exactly does InView work? And what makes it so beneficial for the NHS? This blog will dive into everything you need to know about InView so you can make informed decisions about your own data platform. 

How does InView work? 

To meet the high volume of mandated statutory changes and local reporting requirements, your Trust should be equipped with a solid data platform that is easy to use and fully maintained. InView is risk-free*, robust and easily maintained, ensuring that you and your Trust can meet these requirements by providing all key statutory outputs and fully maintaining them in line with NHS change notifications as part of core product releases.  

Designed and built in a way that promotes rapid implementation of a solution within a Trust, InView secures you with plenty of pre-built content from all disparate data sources in one unified, trustworthy solution. Each of InView’s 30 modules is built from a sophisticated, layered design that will keep future maintenance costs down and future proofing up. Its layers include: 

  • Acquisition Layer: This layer accepts the data from incoming data sources and is designed to accept data in a raw format prior to any data checking.  
  • Integration Layer: As the middle ground between the Acquisition layer and the upcoming Translation layer, this layer moves data from one source to the other and performs matching between data sources. Trust-specific business rules are implemented and dictate how incoming data affects the information stored in the data warehouse.  
  • Translation Area: Data quality and integrity checking are carried out during this layer. This part of the processing also restructures data into a “star schema” model.  
  • Data Model: The aforementioned “star-schema” model is created at this layer, which is optimised for ad-hoc querying and historical data storage. It supports the historical storage of fact data, manages changes to dimensional data and hierarchical structures and ensures historical reporting is conducted effectively.
  • Serving Layer: This layer interacts with the InView user graphical user interface (GUI) to simplify configuration. Database views can be created at this layer to support reporting with minimal effort required from the end user. Real time data can also be presented at this layer, and non-InView data can also be combined to supplement any data you need to report on. 
  • Compliance Layer: This layer is where all statutory outputs are maintained and released to the Trust. 

Where can InView be deployed? 

InView can be deployed either on premise, in the Cloud, or hosted in CACI’s HSCN environment. Once deployed, our highly skilled technical experts forming the Managed Services team will work alongside you to ensure that you and your Trust are constantly supported after InView goes live. We will support you throughout the entire project implementation through fully transferring the necessary skills that will help you and your Trust feel more self-sufficient when using InView. 

Benefits of using InView 

NHS Trusts need accurate, reliable and readily available data for critical reporting and decision making. While this is crucial, it can be one of the biggest challenges for data professionals across the NHS to overcome. InView’s range of benefits can help you and your Trust overcome these challenges through its: 

  • Consistency: As a proven in-house solution that promotes a single version of the truth 
  • Availability: As a maintained product that can supply end-to-end reporting and can be implemented with all local rules correctly applied to incoming data
  • Efficiency: As a partner that is committed to continuously enhancing its solution
  • Flexibility: As an easy-to-use, extendable solution that is tailored to your Trust’s requirements and ensures your Trust will adapt to changes quickly 
  • Reliability: As a modern, interactive solution that allows for sharing not only within your organisation, but with ICS partners and NHSE too.  
  • Volume: As a solution that reduces the onus of statutory changes on the Trust 
  • Low cost of ownership: As a low total cost of ownership solution with maintained product content and changes that a Trust can action themselves. 

InView use cases 

InView produces a single, governed version of the truth that will drive consistent numbers that will enhance decision making, financial measurement, forecasting and information sharing across your Trust. By leveraging InView, you can present data for all purposes from one cohesive source to your Trust’s existing BI Toolset, which will simplify the reporting process and minimise the training needed for your Trust’s analysts.  

To get a sense of just how streamlined these processes within your Trust can be, take a look at some our of client case studies: 

CACI as your InView provider 

CACI has been providing Trusts with a solution that evolves and meets the demands of NHS reporting for over 20 years. Our very own data platform, InView, integrates all disparate source systems to optimise reporting across your Trust. By removing the statutory maintenance burden and time-consuming running of mandated reporting datasets, you and your Trust can focus on achieving priorities while meeting requirements and responding to any ad-hoc or urgent changes as they arise. To top it off, you will gain access to a user community for collaborative content and idea generation and learn how you can further enhance your own InView experience through other users’ takeaways. 

To learn more about InView and how our data warehouse solution could help your organisation, visit our InView page.  

*Risk-free for mandated statutory requirements 

How to find the right IT outsourcing partner

Posted on: 17 March 2023
How to find the right IT outsourcing partner

Looking to work with an IT outsourcing provider? Finding the right partner to deliver your requirements can be a tricky and time-consuming process. But, done right, a successful outsourcing relationship can bring long-term strategic benefits to your business. We asked our experts to share their top tips on how to find the right IT outsourcing partner.

Evaluate capabilities

Having the right expertise is the obvious and most essential criterion, so defining your requirements and expectations is the best way to start your search.

When it comes to narrowing down your vendor choices, it’s important to consider the maturity of an organisation as well as technical capabilities. “The risk of working with a small, specialised provider is that they may struggle to keep a handle on your project,” warns Brian Robertson, Resource Manager at CACI. Inversely, a larger organisation may have the expertise, but not the personal approach you’re looking for in a partner. “Always look for a provider that demonstrates a desire to get to the root of your business’s challenges and can outline potential solutions,” Brian advises.

Find evidence of experience

Typically, working with an outsourcing provider that has accumulated experience over many years is a safe bet; however, Daniel Oosthuizen, Senior Vice President of CACI Network Services, recommends ensuring that your prospective outsourcing provider has experience that is relevant to your business, “When you bring in an outsourcing partner, you want them to hit the ground running, not spending weeks and months onboarding them into your world.” Daniel adds, “This becomes more apparent if you work in a regulated industry, such as banking or financial services, where it’s essential that your provider can guarantee compliance with regulatory obligations as well as your internal policies.”

So, how can you trust a provider has the experience you’re looking for? Of course the provider’s website, case studies, and testimonials are a good place to start, but Daniel recommends interrogating a vendor’s credentials directly, “A successful outsourcing relationship hinges on trust, so it’s important to get a sense of a vendor’s credibility early on. For example, can they demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of your sector? Can they share any details about whom they currently partner with? And can they confidently talk you through projects they’ve completed that are similar to yours?”

Consider cultural compatibility

“When it comes to building a strong, strategic and successful outsourcing partnership, there’s no greater foundation than mutual respect and understanding,” says Brian. Evaluating a potential provider’s approach and attitudes against your business’s culture and core values is another critical step in your vetting process. As Daniel says, “If you share the same values, it will be much easier to implement a seamless relationship between your business and your outsourcing partner, making day-to-day management, communication and even conflict resolution more effective and efficient”.

While checking a company’s website can give you some insight into your prospective provider’s values, it’s also worth finding out how long they’ve held partnerships with other clients, as that can indicate whether they can maintain partnerships for the long-term.

However, Daniel says, “The best way to test if a provider has partnership potential is to go and meet them. Get a feel for the team atmosphere, how they approach conversations about your challenges, and how their values translate in their outsourcing relationships.” Brian adds, “Your vision and values are what drive your business forward, so it’s essential that these components are aligned with your outsourcing provider to gain maximum value from the relationship.”

Assess process and tools

Once you’ve determined a potential outsourcing provider’s level of experience and expertise, it’s important to gain an understanding of how they will design and deliver a solution to meet your business’s needs. “It’s always worth investigating what tech and tools an outsourcing provider has at their disposal and whether they are limited by manufacturer agreements. For example, at CACI, our vendor-agnostic approach means we’re not tied to a particular manufacturer, giving us the flexibility to find the right solution to meet our clients’ needs,” Daniel explains

Speaking of flexibility, determining the agility of your potential outsourcing provider’s approach should play a role in your selection process. “There’s always potential for things to change, particularly when delivering a transformation project over several years,” says Brian, adding “that’s why it’s so important to find a partner that can easily scale their solutions up or down, ensuring that you’ve always got the support you need to succeed.”

Determine quality standards

Determining the quality of a new outsourcing partner’s work before you’ve worked with them can be difficult, but there are some clues that can indicate whether a vendor’s quality standards are in line with your expectations, says Daniel, “A good outsourcing partner will be committed to adding value at every step of your project, so get details on their method and frequency of capturing feedback, whether the goals they set are realistic and achievable, and how they manage resource allocation on projects.”

Brian also recommends quizzing outsourcing providers about their recruitment and hiring process to ensure that you’ll be gaining access to reliable and skilled experts, “It’s easy for an outsourcing provider to say they have the best people, so it’s important to probe a little deeper. How experienced are their experts? How are they ensuring their talent is keeping up to date? What is their process for vetting new candidates? All these questions will help to gain an insight into an outsourcing provider’s quality bar – and whether it’s up to your standard.”

Assess value for money

For most IT leaders, cost is one of the most decisive factors when engaging any service; however,
when looking for an IT outsourcing partner, it’s critical to consider more than just a provider’s pricing model. “Contractual comprehensiveness and flexibility should always be taken into account,” says, Brian. “A contract that is vague can result in ‘scope creep’ and unexpected costs, while a rigid contract can tie businesses into a partnership that’s not adding value.” He adds, “Ultimately, it comes down to attitude, a good outsourcing provider can quickly become a great business partner when they go the extra mile.”

Daniel agrees and advises that IT leaders take a holistic view when weighing up potential outsourcing partners, “Look beyond your initial project, or resource requirements and consider where your business is heading and whether your shortlisted providers can bring in the skills and services you need. After all, a truly successful outsourcing partnership is one that can be relied on for the long haul.”

Looking for an outsourcing partner to help with your network operations? Contact our expert team today.

The difference between reporting and insight

Posted on: 17 August 2022
The difference between reporting and insight

Data is no use to NHS organisations without the expertise and tools to make it actionable

Data has become more and more significant in all industries and settings. The NHS is no exception. With a huge amount of patient, service and performance data at its disposal, there should be a wealth of insight available to help shape patient care and develop the best services in every community.

But there’s a very important caveat. Everyone knows that raw data doesn’t provide actionable information. That’s why it’s generally issued in the form of reports. But what do the reports tell you?

Reporting on data is not the same as generating meaningful and transformative insight from it.

It’s common for NHS organisations to produce reports that list statistics and objects without the context or perspective that could give them meaning as a basis for decisions. These reports can tell us what has happened and provide headline figures for costs, volumes and timeframes, but they don’t reveal insight.

Drawing insight from data means looking at it through a new lens. It could mean evaluating how past performance could influence future behaviours and decisions. It could mean modelling multiple hypothetical scenarios to decide the best approach from several options.

Data reporting is a valid exercise when you’re monitoring performance against fixed objectives. But it’s generally a historical, static activity. The data insight that NHS organisations need is about planning for the future and adjusting programmes in-flight to reflect the latest information and evolving patient needs. It’s about scenario modelling. It’s about bringing together different datasets, to gain more and more detailed and specific understanding of the causes of outcomes and what influences them. This kind of data insight is truly transformative because it allows NHS organisations to continually scrutinise, optimise and innovate in their services and care.

The impact of true insight on NHS services

Sarah Culkin, Interim Head of the Analytics Unit at NHSX, and Sukhmeet Panesar, Deputy Director within NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Data, Analysis and Intelligence Service describe the impact of data insight: “Knowledge is power. In healthcare, it is often life-saving. The NHS generates a huge amount of data which can be analysed and used to drive improvements in care and how services are run. Ultimately, data analysis results in improved patient outcomes and experience, as well as optimal use of NHS resources.”

Trusts and NHS service providers know that data is valuable. Many have already invested in data solutions and tools designed to store and analyse information. But not all are generating powerful and potentially life-saving insight. Digital insight for healthcare is a constantly evolving field, with new tools and technologies emerging to extract more relevant information. It can be hard to keep pace with the range of data resources on offer and to know how to prioritise system development and investment.

Acquiring and acting on insight demands data literacy in teams

Sarah Culkin and Sukhmeet Panesar highlight another key issue that affects many NHS organisations in their quest to use data to improve services: “In general, the NHS is failing to make the most of its data because there are not enough people with the right analytical skills to make sense of the information being collected.”

Data insight and analytics is a fast-evolving field. Without training, mentoring and support from specialists who understand the NHS environment as well as the potential of data, NHS managers and analysts cannot make informed decisions and harness the data they have to best effect. Education and skills are key – both for general data literacy in NHS clinical, management, operations and finance teams, and for analytics and technology in the data science teams who support them.

With all the data you collect, are you making the most of it to support crucial trust or service decisions and to deliver responsive, patient-centric care that meets real-time needs?

If you’d like to find out more about CACI’s Data Maturity Assessment service, or our data and analytics training, please get in touch. It’s all part of our HISC (Healthcare Insight Success Cycle) data optimisation approach for NHS organisations. Find out more by downloading our brochure Spearheading your data journey to improve patient outcomes.

Is knowledge and skills a barriers to transformative insight for your NHS organisation? Working with a specialist NHS data transformation partner could help you achieve best value from your data and budgets.

Find out how CACI’s healthcare team can provide advice on developing and maintaining your technology and offer staff training for data literacy and skills, so you can sustain your data journey from within. For further information, visit or website or get in touch with our NHS client team.

Managing patient data to guide you in the new ICS landscape

Posted on: 1 August 2022
Managing patient data to guide you in the new ICS landscape

How NHS organisations can prepare to access and contribute to a powerful pool of insight that will help them meet local needs better than ever before

When the new ICS framework rolls out, predicted for summer 2022, it should enable healthcare providers and bodies across the NHS to collaborate better than ever before, with a shared goal of providing improved patient care across the board. By moving away from fragmentation and competition, NHS services should be able to consider patient needs and pathways holistically and offer the best locally targeted overall care from a range of specialisms and organisations in a more coordinated and efficient way.

We have a real opportunity with the formation of the ICSs to change how we use data to better coordinate care and re-design our service based on the needs of our citizens… It’s a really exciting time to work in the NHS.
Ayub Bhayat, Director of insight and data platform at NHS England and NHS Improvement

NHS leaders and healthcare teams are excited about the opportunity to smash silos and break through frustrating organisational barriers to work more effectively together in this new, collaborative culture. But they’ll need the right information and tools for shared decision-making. That means bringing together data that was formerly held separately and unleashing its full potential as part of a comprehensive system of healthcare insight.

What should NHS organisations do to make sure they’re playing their part and will have access to the data and analytics they need to deliver excellent outcomes as part of their ICS?

Trusts and healthcare bodies will need to be certain they can share data securely and effectively. They’ll need systems that can bring together disparate data in actionable formats, so it can be compared and analysed at patient and pathway level. They’ll need reporting tools and dashboards that reveal insight to underpin operational and investment decisions, as well as to track the success of initiatives. They’ll need to continuously augment data, so planning and collaboration keep pace with real-time community and service needs.

Every ICS will have its own priorities, reflecting what the local community needs in terms of NHS care across the board. Different data and analysis will be needed to plan the best collaborative service provision in every area.

The overall vision is exciting, but to achieve it, organisations must identify practical steps to move from where they are today with their own data to the collaborative ICS data ecosystem. There’s an opportunity to exploit new and proven technology that manages and harnesses data to produce advanced, relevant and detailed insight.

We recommend a systematic approach to assessing where your organisation currently stands and how you can evolve your data strategy to achieve the best outcomes in an ICS. In CACI’s digital healthcare knowledge model HISC (Healthcare Insight Success Cycle), we’ve developed Discovery tools and processes that help NHS organisations do exactly that:

  •  Describe and assess your current data strategy, systems and approach
  •  Define your future data direction and destination as part of an ICS
  •  Review your data security, storage and infrastructure
  •  Build a strategy and roadmap for data insight that will improve clinical and operational delivery and performance in the ICS framework
  •  Build a business case to connect investment in insight with tangible outcomes

CEO of NHS Confederation Matthew Taylor said in March 2022 that the use of high quality, real-time population health data will help “to shift from a system that responds to demand to a system that genuinely responds to need”, and that the NHS’ implementation of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) has the potential to “help create that enabling environment” needed to leverage data effectively.

Ruth Holland, deputy chief information officer at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, went even further: “ICS’ will stand and fall on their data capability in ten years’ time. I would sternly encourage digital and data leaders to look at the costings you are putting into plans [for staff and skills] that will support the ambition.”

CACI’s specialist healthcare technology team has the experience and knowledge to support your organisation with planning and delivering an ICS data transformation programme, including training and skills transfer for your staff.

If you’d like to find out more about CACI’s HISC model for optimising NHS healthcare data, download our brochure Spearheading your data journey to improve patient outcomes. It describes in more detail how you can take action to activate data insight to reshape health and social care in an ICS.

To find out more visit our website or speak to an NHS data consultant about the results we’ve helped other organisations achieve, please get in touch with our NHS client team.

Reshaping health and social care with data insight

Posted on: 14 July 2022
Reshaping health and social care with data insight

How data can help you improve patient outcomes in 7 priority areas

There’s constant pressure on NHS organisations to deliver better patient outcomes and value from public funding. Demand is high and service quality is under intense scrutiny.

NHS organisations have access to a wealth of organisational and patient data. But bringing it together to produce meaningful and trusted insight is a challenge. Decision-makers and clinicians must have access to analytics and reporting in clear formats. Data insight needs to be current and available in a timely manner. Data storage and usage must also be secure and compliant, to meet NHS and national standards for patient and citizen confidentiality.

Everyone’s talking about the fact that data insight is crucial to help your NHS organisation plan, operate and continually optimise resources, services, staffing and patient experiences. But what does that mean in practice? How do you unlock the insight to make a difference today? Amongst all the competing priorities for NHS managers, how specifically can data insight change the way your organisation operates, improve patient outcomes and tackle challenges like waiting lists and staff shortages?

Working with NHS Trusts and social care organisations, we’ve seen at first hand the difference that well managed data can make to efficiency and patient care. Actionable insight to influence real-time and future service design and planning is the holy grail for driving real value from your data to help improve the performance of your NHS organisation.

But to make it happen, where do you start? How can you achieve rapid and meaningful impact from an investment of time and budget in a data project?

We’ve identified seven high value activities that our NHS customers and partners have successfully optimised using data insight. By quantifying the benefits of one or more of these outcomes for your organisation, the case for prioritising your data project becomes clearer and easier to communicate with colleagues and stakeholders.

7 priority activities that NHS organisations can drive with data

1. Model and predict demand for services

Complete and accurate data and effective analytics tools give you the power to model and predict demand for services based on specific evidence relating to your patients and community. Produce relevant reports that decision-makers can scrutinise and understand with ease, so they can support your recommendations readily.

2. Put the right staff in the right place at the right time

Effective and accurate data about demand for services and availability of staff can help you roster more effectively – reducing wait times and giving patients better experiences in your clinical organisation. This has particular value when dealing with increased absence relating to Covid.

3. Review and respond immediately to current patient needs

If you have the capability to analyse patient data in real time, you can give clinicians the information they need to make fully informed decisions in the moment about care and treatment, to achieve the best patient outcomes.

4. Plan services effectively for better patient outcomes in critical areas

With a specialist NHS data platform like CACI’s InView, you can apply powerful analytics to dive deep into data and answer the most important questions for your organisation. Drive improved patient outcomes by tackling priority KPIs for your organisation – from waiting list monitoring, patient level costing and clinic usage to theatre utilisation and clinician availability.

5. Focus on frequent flyers

With a clear picture of frequent flyer characteristics and visit patterns from comprehensive and up-to-date reporting, you can proactively identify patients who need more support or information and help them to access the most appropriate services and treatments for their needs.

6. Integrate data to build a complete picture of demand for services

When you bring together local government and hospital data in a single, integrated data platform, you can access even richer insight into patients, services and demand. With one source of analytics and reporting, you can maximise the value of the information your organisation holds, including collaborating with other Trusts through data sharing within an ICS ecosystem.

7. Understand your patients more thoroughly and personally

Compliant data records and effective reporting gives your NHS organisation a clear picture of the demographic backgrounds of your patients. By understanding their backgrounds and lifestyles, you can shape your services and communications for better access and improved outcomes.

Every NHS organisation is different, with priorities and challenges that are unique to its community and resources. No matter where you are on your data journey or how you most urgently need to uncover and apply insight to your decision-making and planning, a tailored data transformation strategy can help you move forward. The most practical and effective approach is to outline a series of steps on that journey, making sure that you drive value from your data project as early as possible by accessing insight that supports your most pressing tactical requirements.

If you’d like to find out more about how data helps you deliver tangible improvements in key areas of your NHS organisation’s patient care, download our brochure Spearheading your data journey to improve patient outcomes. It describes in more detail how you can take action to activate data insight to reshape health and social care. It explains how CACI’s Health Insight Success Cycle is specifically designed to drive maximum value from data for NHS organisations.

To find out more visit our website or speak to an NHS data consultant about the results we’ve helped other organisations achieve, please get in touch with our NHS client team.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

Posted on: 20 June 2022
Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

Highlights

• One version of the truth instead of diverse standalone solutions
• Insight for decision-making, financial measurement and forecasting
• Local customisation to keep pace with change
• Fully maintained solution to reduce in-house IT burden
• Supports latest statutory reporting and ongoing change

About Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust provides acute health care services from Torbay Hospital, along with community health services and adult social care. It was the first Trust in England to integrate hospital and community care with social care.

The Trust has around 6,500 staff and 800 volunteers. It runs Torbay Hospital as well as five community hospitals and other local clinics. It provides health and social care to the local population, with around 500,000 face-to-face contacts in patients’ homes and communities each year, serving a resident population of approximately 286,000 people, plus about 100,000 holiday visitors at any one time in the summer season

I’d be happy to recommend this product to any other NHS Trust. InView gives us the flexibility to work around a stable core product — and the support from CACI is outstanding.
Stephen Judd, Informatics: Head of Data Engineering – Strategy and Improvement, Torbay and Devon NHS Foundation Trust

The challenge: Inadequate legacy systems and disparate, incomplete data

South Devon and Torbay has used InView for many years, with the original solution implemented in 2006. More recently, the Trust has experienced challenging times in its IT division, with tight budgets limiting staff and resources. This led to key systems becoming outdated, through lack of investment in upgrades and system replacements.

The resourceful IT team used workarounds and in-house development to bridge gaps and connect systems, to draw essential clinical and financial insight from the Trust’s data, stored in disparate sources.

Head of Data Engineering Stephen Judd says, “On top of this, since Covid, there have been big organisational changes in the Trust, including new wards, which affected the data we work with. And a lot of our lookup tables were based on old national standards. Although we had a made series of updates to the standards and data dictionary, our Patient Administration System (PAS) and InView hadn’t caught up.”

In 2020, Torbay and South Devon received funding to upgrade their SQL server and jumped at the chance. Stephen Judd says, “We knew we needed to upgrade the InView system as well and seized the opportunity to present a business case for this. It was accepted – but we needed to implement by the end of the financial year – less than four months away. Normally, we would have planned twice as long for this type of data warehouse project.”

The solution: A new, fully functional InView database and support to prepare and migrate

CACI agreed to work with Stephen and his team to deliver a new InView data warehouse against the tight deadline. Stephen explains, “CACI provided overall consultancy to plan the data warehouse migration. With many vacancies in our data team, we also used CACI consultants to backfill. Due to time and resource constraints, we didn’t have as much engagement with the information team and data team as we wanted. Moreover, some of our old source systems and extracts didn’t have an Information Asset Owner or anyone who understood the data architecture fully. We had to do a lot of interrogation analysis to bridge this knowledge gap. We wouldn’t have been able to deliver the project without CACI’s support with this.”

CACI’s consultants worked with Stephen’s team to implement the latest version of the InView data warehouse for healthcare organisations. It brings together feeds from in-patient, outpatient, critical care, the old maternity system, neo-natal and paediatric and some community and extended data (from InfoFlex) that adds richness and detail to patient records – for example, information from GP discharge letters.

Torbay and South Devon’s core project embraced the core data feeds they knew best. Stephen’s team set a stretch goal to bring some of the Trust’s community data in. This was particularly challenging, as it was poorly defined and spread over eight systems.

Stephen says, “Some of the services had started setting up their own booking systems outside our main PAS and using InfoFlex. Drawing on CACI’s expertise and resources, we were able to merge these in, which has made our data more complete and accurate again.”

To improve outputs and reporting, the team replaced a daily, fixed format export routine originally written in the 1980s. They built new feeds for demographic, inpatient and outpatient data from the SWIFT bed management system.

The benefits: Data best practice from a proven solution and trusted partner

Torbay and South Devon NHS Trust could have chosen to build its own custom solution. But InView has a powerful advantage. Stephen explains: “If we create anything bespoke, we have to support it. And we don’t have capacity.”

There has been a big shift because of Covid – the NHS is moving towards a more standardised national view of income. “InView means we can accommodate national SUS calculations and keep pace as our obligations increase each year, because it uses a recognised best practice approach. With InView, we have a proven, standard platform and can make local adjustments for a perfect fit to our organisation,” says Stephen.

For ongoing support, CACI’s team is responsible for upgrades and loading new tariffs. Stephen can focus his own engineers on getting the data right. This is key, because some of NHS England’s payment to the Trust relies on it. Stephen gives an example: “We discovered that a percentage of our outpatient activity had the wrong consultant speciality, which potentially reduces our national NHS income. With CACI maintaining InView, I have the resources to investigate and rectify that type of issue.”

“The beauty of working with CACI is that they take ownership of everything they promise in the scope of the agreement, and fix it. They provided excellent project management. I didn’t have to chase up work or check every detail – you can only do that with real trust in the team’s capability and judgement to escalate when needed.”

“The InView data warehouse is a product that will last us ten or more years – it’s our one source of data for all key reporting so it’s a critical solution for the Trust. Amongst the many programmes I’m responsible for, it was a relief not to have to worry about this one, because CACI has earned our trust and confidence throughout a long working relationship. CACI’s engineers are extremely experienced and were able to jump in, ask intelligent questions, and deal with unfamiliar and unusual data feeds and systems! The project manager provided excellent communication throughout, so I didn’t need to intervene and always knew the latest status and progress.”
Peter Sheard, IT Programme Manager, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

How to create a successful M&A IT integration strategy

Posted on: 11 March 2022
How to create a successful M&A IT integration strategy

IT integration woman looking at laptopFrom entering new markets to growing market share, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can bring big business benefits. However, making the decision to acquire or merge is the easy part of the process. What comes next is likely to bring disruption and difficulty. In research reported by the Harvard Business Review, the failure rate of acquisitions is astonishingly high – between 70 and 90 per cent – with integration issues often highlighted as the most likely cause.

While the impact of M&A affects every element of an organisation, the blending of technical assets and resulting patchwork of IT systems can present significant technical challenges for IT leaders. Here, we explore the most common problems and how to navigate them to achieve a smooth and successful IT transition.

Get the full picture

Mapping the route of your IT transition is crucial to keeping your team focused throughout the process. But you need to be clear about your starting point. That’s why conducting a census of the entire IT infrastructure – from hardware and software to network systems, as well as enterprise and corporate platforms – should be the first step in your IT transition.

Gather requirements & identify gaps

Knowing what you’ve got is the first step, knowing what you haven’t is the next. Technology underpins every element of your business, so you should examine each corporate function and business unit through an IT lens. What services impact each function? How will an integration impact them? What opportunities are there to optimise? Finding the answers to these questions will help you to identify and address your most glaring gaps.

Seize opportunities to modernise

M&A provide the opportunity for IT leaders to re-evaluate and update their environments, so it’s important to look at where you can modernise rather than merge. This will ensure you gain maximum value from the process. For example, shifting to cloud infrastructure can enable your in-house team to focus on performance optimisation whilst also achieving cost savings and enhanced security. Similarly, automating routine or manual tasks using AI or machine learning can ease the burden on overwhelmed IT teams.

Implement strong governance

If you’re fusing two IT departments, you need to embed good governance early on. Start by assessing your current GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) maturity. A holistic view will enable you to target gaps effectively and ensure greater transparency of your processes. In addition to bringing certainty and consistency across your team, taking this crucial step will also help you to tackle any compliance and security shortfalls that may result from merging with the acquired business.

Clean up your data

Managing data migration can be a complex process during a merger and acquisition. It’s likely that data will be scattered across various systems, services, and applications. Duplicate data may also be an issue. This makes it difficult to gain an updated single customer view, limiting your ability to track sales and marketing effectiveness. The lack of visibility can also have a negative impact on customer experience. For example, having two disparate CRM systems may result in two sales representatives contacting a single customer, causing frustration and portraying your organisation as disorganised. There’s also a significant financial and reputational risk if data from the merged business isn’t managed securely. With all this in mind, it’s clear that developing an effective strategy and management process should be a key step in planning your IT transition.

Lead with communication

Change can be scary, and uncertainty is the enemy of productivity. That’s why communication is key to a successful merger and acquisition. Ensuring a frequent flow of information can help to combat this. However, IT leaders should also be mindful of creating opportunities for employees to share ideas and concerns.

If you are merging two IT departments, it is important to understand the cultural differences of the two businesses and where issues may arise. This will help you to develop an effective strategy for bringing the two teams together. While championing collaboration and knowledge sharing will go a long way to helping you achieve the goal of the M&A process – a better, stronger, more cohesive business.

How we can help

From assessing your existing IT infrastructure to cloud migration, data management and driving efficiencies through automation, we can support you at every step of your IT transition.

Transitioning your IT following M&A? Contact our expert team today.