Raising the curtain: Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007

The NHS must be seen to provide first class healthcare while demonstrating value to the taxpayer. NHS organisations are keen to hone their business intelligence: and Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 can help them to do it.

It’s a well-worn theme, but nonetheless true, that in healthcare both clinicians and managers need the right information in the right place at the right time to make well-founded decisions.

“People need instant, meaningful information to deliver the right care, meet performance targets, claim payments by results and win patients against competing healthcare providers,” says Microsoft technical strategist, Nick Umney.

“That means capturing, storing and analysing data, and then turning it into meaningful information that can be used to make informed decisions.”

Extracting data

Traditionally, this has been easier said than done. Daniel Wakefield, sales director at Microsoft partner 21C, says that for most trusts, tracking metrics and measuring key performance indicators has involved emailing endless documents across the organisation. “As an integrated performance management application, PerformancePoint enables decision-makers to monitor, analyse and plan their operations.”

This is a cumbersome and potentially error-prone process that raises concerns around data accuracy and consistency. “What [NHS organisations] really need is a holistic solution that can extract patient data from many disparate sources on an ad-hoc basis for reporting purposes,” he says.

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is such a solution. “As an integrated performance management application, PerformancePoint enables decision-makers to monitor, analyse and plan their operations, as well as drive accountability and real insight into organisational data,” says Mr Wakefield.

And turning it into effective business intelligence

PerformancePoint allows NHS organisations to do more with the data they already collect routinely. Mr Wakefield argues that by using it, NHS organisations will be better placed to ensure the consistent measurement of targets and results across their operations.

For example, he argues that trusts’ ability to track and understand patient flows will be dramatically improved, allowing them to boost accountability by managing resources more effectively.

PerformancePoint’s advanced visualisation capabilities will also allow them to spot trends and opportunities, enabling much better business planning. “They can use trend analytics to make predictions or break data down by demographic requirements,” he says. “This is becoming crucial in delivering cost-effective patient care.”

Advanced visualisation capabilities

Mr Umney says the strength of PerformancePoint is two-fold. Extracting data from multiple sources is one part of the story; presenting it in clear, concise ways that are appropriate to each user is the other. “The great thing about this framework approach is that an organisation can start small on an individual business topic and extend its performance management system, bringing in new data sets and systems as required.”

Because the PerformancePoint infrastructure supports the Office environment on NHS employees’ desktops, there’s no requirement for them to learn new software. They simply use applications they already know, like Excel.

But it also allows for a more sophisticated presentation of data. For example:

• Top-line metrics can be presented simply - for instance by using a “traffic light” to show good or bad performance

• Graphs can be used for ongoing performance or trend-spotting

• Scorecards can be used to demonstrate performance across comparable departments, individuals or challenges

• Dashboards can collate related metrics together in whatever way is most helpful for the user and so that all users get the right amount of data to make useful and informed decisions without a statistical overload.

PerformancePoint in the NHS today

PerformancePoint is already in action in trusts and NHS commissioning organisations. Mr Wakefield says it is being used “for trust board performance reporting, using digital dashboards”, at Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust.

It is also being used in a project at Wandsworth Primary Care Trust to “monitor and analyse a range of business threads, such as immunisation and vaccination uptake in the borough.”

Other PCTs are using PerformancePoint to measure accident and emergency waiting times and alcohol-related admissions, healthcare associated infections, and – increasingly – service line reporting. "By leveraging PerformancePoint, they can keep costs down. But more importantly, they can manage their operations to meet the growing needs of their patient population."

“The great thing about this framework approach to building a performance management environment is that an organisation can start small on an individual business topic and extend its performance management system, bringing in new data sets and systems as required,” says Mr Wakefield.

Costs and deployment

While cost is always a concern, for most organisations the real value in using PerformancePoint goes beyond margins. Mr Wakefield says: “Trusts need to become more metrics-focused.

“By leveraging PerformancePoint, they can keep costs down. But more importantly, they can manage their operations to meet the growing needs of their patient population. This new integrated data environment provides greater levels of accuracy and ultimately serves patients better.”

He also flags speed of deployment as a significant strength. PerformancePoint is indeed fast out of the box. It has an application layer to connect Microsoft SQL Server (the standard platform for data integration), SharePoint and Office - all of which operate in “plain vanilla” deployments with minimum customisation.

It also makes the most of software already available to the NHS under the Enterprise Agreement that NHS Connecting for Health negotiated with Microsoft; and thanks to the pervasiveness of Office in the NHS, clinical, operational and financial managers can now all share the same real-time viewpoint.

Related Links

- Read more about the launch of Microsoft PerformancePoint 2007

- NHS Webcast: Business Intelligence and Collaborative Working in the NHS

- Why choose business intelligence in healthcare?

- Welcome to Virtual Earth: a new dimension in Business Intelligence