Case study
Data solutions and digital transformation at North Bristol NHS Trust
Summary
As one of the largest hospital trusts in the UK with an annual turnover of £532 million, North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) recognised the value that implementing new data architecture and deploying business intelligence software would have on wider business outcomes. To achieve this, they enlisted a trusted data partner, CACI.
Industry
Healthcare
Products used
Challenge
NBT was struggling with NHS statutory changes, reporting pressures, disparate systems and data quality overheads. In order to solve these challenges, NBT looked to implement a Trust-wide data warehouse and business intelligence solution.
In addition to the data warehousing solution, NBT had many disparate reporting tool options, and it was important to implement one solution where any member of staff could go to source any report or dashboard output.
Following implementation, NBT needed the solution to be maintained under a managed service offering but built in a way to ensure self-sufficiency in the Trust’s team, so that the solution could be extended in line with new and changed requirements
Solution
NBT chose CACI to provide and implement a new data architecture including a Trust-wide data warehouse solution, managed service support, and deployment of leading business intelligence (BI) software.
The solution integrates a vast quantity of data from many disparate sources including administrative, clinical and finance systems. Additionally, the solution incorporates business logic in order to calculate and model the Trust’s income. The solution is fully maintained by CACI through the provision of a managed service and a structured product release schedule.
The solution incorporates a layered database architecture incorporating integration, Operational Data Store, translation, star schema and semantic data mart layers. This design reduces ongoing maintenance costs and increases flexibility to new requirements or interface changes.
Historical data integrity is preserved through the implementation of an efficient, slowly changing dimensions design, and a full data quality process is built into the data flow enabling reporting and resolution of data quality issues. Both row and column-level security governance is built into the design along with NHS privacy measures.
The logical design of the solution along with its interfaces is documented along with physical database design features to achieve optimal performance on the operating platform.
Data was migrated and re-factored from legacy solutions to maintain data history, and particular attention was made to how the cut-over point was implemented.
NBT benefited from CACI’s experience in promoting outcome-based dashboards for the healthcare sector. This enabled NBT to set up the best possible framework and method for rollout of BI analytics across the organisation, ensuring high stakeholder engagement for outcome alignment and adoption of change. Experience in the use of data science has allowed the Trust to further exploit its data to help improve patient outcomes through accurate predictions.
Results
Since implementation, NBT has been able to centralise its BI function and source all data through the single-governed version of the truth. It has ensured data readiness, completeness and accuracy is in place and always available for reporting.
NBT’s income is comprehensively calculated on a daily basis, with data quality issues managed and corrected in a timely fashion. The accuracy and completeness of this process has delivered a significant financial benefit to the Trust and an early return on investment.
Data is readily available and accessible to stakeholders across the Trust via a centralised portal, with most data updated on a daily basis and some updated every two minutes, allowing near real-time decision making.
Following a jointly executed project, training and knowledge transfer, the NBT team are fully empowered and self-sufficient in the use and future expansion of the solution. This covers construction of analytics and addition of new data sources.
Through the innovative design of the CACI solution, NBT benefits from a fully-maintained core product, yet retain the flexibility to expand the solution to meet local and future needs (e.g. adding new data attributes, entities and rules).
NBT are part of the CACI NHS User Community and benefit from the sharing of content and ideas with other trusts, as well as benefitting from CACI’s commitment to and investment in the NHS.
