What to do with the 'Information'......

I am going to attend a meeting this week to learn more about 'Information for Commissioning'.

What can Commissioners ask for or expect, what can they do with it and how will it change things?

It should be very interesting and relevant as we glide smoothly (?) into the era of CCGs.

But perhaps I have been living in a different universe from other Healthcare providers for the past 10 years or more. We have no end of data available already, we have 'grown-up' with local comparisons and 'bench-marking', we look in detail at prescribing, referrals, length of stay, urgent admissions, 'frequent-flyers' etc etc. What is so new in the ambitions now being expressed and the expectation?

Well - being the grey-haired sceptic I am, a few observations flow:

• The availability of data to the NHS is far from new - we have always had lots, but seem to be short of time and resource (and sometimes the will) to analyse & understand it, to identify areas of unwarranted variation and to act upon these.
• The data alone does not drive change - despite all the political ambition and rhetoric. 
• The commitment and resource to continually collate, analyse and reflect upon collected data and the information it reveals needs to be embedded within every care AND Commissioning organisation.
• When finances get tighter - we tend to cut resource to analytical staff & processes and 'assume' wrongly that the work can be absorbed into daily activity.

SO the message from a small healthcare organisation with a track record of reflection and action on comparative data is simple:

• Priorities what you look at and start small
• Be prepared to learn by comparison with peers
• Commit resource to data analysis as an administrative and clinical function
• Make changes as a team AFTER analysis
• Review future performance to check desired outcomes

In Commissioning  'learning' Healthcare Organisations at all levels, NHS England and CCGs are not just asking for delivery, they must resource practitioner and organisational level reflective analysis.

In my 'bubble' of digital Primary Care I am nervous that there will be a strong Top Down temptation to 'name-and-shame' those who are slower to embrace policy aims at the front-line, as revealed by National reporting. In a forward looking 'learning organisation' we would help each other to understand the data and the opportunities for change and improvement these reveal. To turn the sticks into carrots... the real power of data......

Peter S.

Well done EMIS

I am not normally known to sign the praises of computer system suppliers - even the one I have used for many years. But this week the company released a small upgrade to the search and audit function that means I can find out much more about how many patients on my list are registered and using the on-line interaction services.

So why is this so important to me?

Well, very simply, without looking at the statistics of patient interaction I may be complacent assuming we have done all we need to meet the demands for on-line interaction, or that such a function is only used by a tiny minority.

So this month my surgery has a registered list of 9,277 patients. Of these 1,329 have an activated account with the theoretical ability to access on-line services such as medication and appointment ordering - accounting to about 14% of the surgery list.
A further 1,630 have had a PIN issued giving them the opportunity to complete registration, but have not yet chosen to complete the process (a further 18%), leaving 6,318 using only traditional services.

There are a few interesting features in the 'activated user' group. 114 accounts are for children under 10, so clearly some parents see advantages of registering their children. In general more females are registered for the service, except in the 60-69 and 70-79 age ranges.

So overall 2 cheers for EMIS who have responded to my request to add search functionality - but they could do much more...

I need to have regular reports produced, without having to devise and build and run hem myself, and I suspect all other practices will want the same with 2013-14 DES targets. More importantly to make an impact on demand at the desk and on the phone I need a more detailed breakdown of how many appointments are booked on-line and repeat scripts ordered on a monthly basis - and who are users of Medical Record Access and messaging.
This information will help the practice to manage workload AND give a better understanding how our services are used and could be developed.

And all GP IT system suppliers are in the same boat. The systems contain highly useful information - just help us as users to get at it please in a way that makes sense.

PS