4-page Case Study - Posted 5/7/2008
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Hospital Delivers Better Business Insight with PerformancePoint Server 2007
The Credit Valley Hospital is a community hospital in one of Canada’s fastest growing communities. The hospital is committed to delivering superior health care services to the citizens of Mississauga, Ontario the regions of Halton, Peel and beyond – close to two million potential patients. In order to promote greater visibility and accountability in its processes, Credit Valley needed a more cost-effective method to track and monitor medical resource, patient and financial information. Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Systemgroup Inc., the hospital deployed Microsoft® Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 as part of its business intelligence (BI) platform. The solution enables staff to define and use scorecards and key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive accountability throughout the facility. Today, The Credit Valley Hospital has transformed into a dynamic, metrics-based organization as staff now have better insight into organizational data and can more efficiently track patient flow across the organization.
Situation
Since 1985, The Credit Valley Hospital has been providing patients with access to leading-edge medical research, programs and treatment. Located in Mississauga, Ontario, the hospital delivers community healthcare services to more than 24,000 inpatients, 407,000 outpatients and 70,000 emergency room visitors each year. The healthcare facility currently employs more than 2,100 people with close to 250 physicians with privileges to practice at the hospital.
In Ontario, the healthcare system is under increasing pressure to show value for money. Hospitals are primarily funded by the provincial government which has recently introduced a new Healthcare Accountability Agreement to ensure that mutual expectations are clear and accountable to the taxpaying public. All publicly funded hospitals including Credit Valley Hospital are bound to uphold rigorous financial, quality and performance measurements regarding service levels.
As a healthcare leader The Credit Valley Hospital wanted to exceed the new provincial requirements. According to Dan Germain, Chief Financial and Information Officer at The Credit Valley Hospital, in order to promote greater transparency and accountability the healthcare provider needed a more cost-effective method to track and monitor medical information.
“We're faced with a healthcare system that is under intense pressure to meet regulatory requirements and patient needs. We want to track information accurately while ensuring that our resources are being utilized effectively. Our goal is to use performance management tools to access information quickly and, ultimately, to deliver patient service better,” says Germain.
For example, the hospital wanted to move from the use of white boards and manual lists and, in their place, more effectively manage its clinical and financial databases. The challenge was that tracking metrics and measuring performance management indicators involved e-mailing numerous standalone documents and spreadsheets across the organization – a cumbersome and potentially error prone process that was creating concerns around data accuracy and consistency.
The hospital attempted to deploy a third-party solution to deliver basic scorecarding and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to its staff but ultimately required a more holistic solution that would deliver ad hoc analysis and enough flexibility to extract patient data from many disparate sources.
“We’ve recently committed to a series of performance measurement and business intelligence metrics and needed a point solution that enabled us to monitor on an ongoing basis,” says Germain. “The new tool has to meet our analytical needs on both the regulatory and accountability side, and increase our operational efficiency as well.”
Solution
The Credit Valley Hospital worked with a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Systemgroup Inc., to implement a new business intelligence (BI) solution. After reviewing several options, including tools from Cognos and SAS, Credit Valley decided on Microsoft® Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 as the most flexible and cost-effective performance management option.
PerformancePoint Server 2007 is an integrated performance management application that allows hospital decision-makers to monitor, analyze and plan their operations as well as drive accountability and insight into organizational data. The tool, which is helping Credit Valley improve processes and financial performance across the organization, is attractive because it provides a user experience in the familiar and easy-to-use Microsoft® Office system.
“The Credit Valley Hospital is one of the most cost efficient hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area. We have adopted a strategy to focus on a single vendor stack as much as possible to economize our efficiency and cost structure,” says Jamie Bowie, Director of Information Systems & Telecommunications at The Credit Valley Hospital. “We had already concentrated on Microsoft, and saw an opportunity to continue that strategy and bring in PerformancePoint Server 2007 to ensure consistent measurement of targets and results throughout the hospital.”
The solution also integrates with its data warehouse based on Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Enterprise Edition, which houses both financial and clinical data. Using a single integrated executive dashboard in PerformancePoint, the hospital is now able to track and monitor KPIs around approximately 100 operational measurements within the hospital and provide additional drilldown capabilities.
“The ability to drill down and access data in the system to get information on an ad hoc basis for reporting purposes is extremely critical for Credit Valley. Healthcare providers can now conduct more proactive planning based on clinical data that they're getting on a daily basis. As well, they now have access to trending analysis and analytics that tells them who is getting sick with what, and breaks down data by demographics. This is crucial in delivering enhanced and cost-effective patient care,” says Tim Yeomans, Director of Client Services at Systemgroup Inc.
Benefits
With the help of PerformancePoint Server 2007, Credit Valley now is equipped with a Business Intelligence (BI) platform that provides a better way to access and manage performance data. By using scorecards and KPIs to drive accountability across the organization, The Credit Valley Hospital has transformed into a dynamic, metrics-based organization – improving its ability to efficiently manage resources and track patient flow across the organization.
Enhanced Performance and Transparency
Credit Valley is now better positioned to ensure consistent measurement of targets and results throughout the organization by setting targets at the enterprise level. The ability to track and understand patient flow has dramatically improved, allowing the hospital to boost overall accountability by more effectively managing resources.
The organization has also been able to improve corporate governance and drive deeper accountability throughout the various levels of the organization. As a result, the hospital now has more confidence in the quality of its data and in its ability to analyze it in real-time.
“PerformancePoint allows us to track KPIs and metrics on the business side and in the clinical area as well. It’s an important benefit to have the ability to drill down and get critical information and then manipulate it so that we can see where we can improve service to the community,” says Germain.
Advanced Analytic and Visualization Capabilities
Staff at Credit Valley now benefit from a single business data model shared across monitoring, analytics, and planning activities. For example, healthcare professionals can easily track and monitor medical and patient data and make better sense of what the data analysis is telling them. They can also take advantage of advanced visualization capabilities to help spot trends and opportunities, allowing for better business planning.
“In healthcare, despite having sources of disparate and duplicate information, we have to have the right information at the right time. The white board and manual lists are gone – patient information is now quickly and easily accessible from anywhere in the department. The new Microsoft-based BI solution is really helping us deliver a higher standard for the patients we serve,” says Germain.
Reduced Costs and Increased Integration
Since PerformancePoint Server 2007 uses the Microsoft Office system as its primary interface, hospital staff can interact with familiar tools like Excel to consume information, collaborate with colleagues, and contribute to plans and the performance management cycle. This means lower overall costs for the organization, by reducing the amount of training and support on the solution. The new integrated data environment also provides greater levels of accuracy and security, and ultimately serves patients better.
“We're a $300-million organization and our financials are pretty straightforward and clear. While cost is always a key concern for us as a healthcare service provider, the real value in using PerformancePoint for a hospital is more than just looking at our margins,” says Germain. "As we grow to meet our expanding community, it is important to become more metrics-focused. We’re leveraging PerformancePoint Server to keep costs low, while managing operations to meet the needs of our growing patient population.”
