George Eliot does Ardentia deal

The George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust has implemented Ardentia’s Activity Flow Analytics to give it greater visibility of patient referral patterns from local practices.

The Warwickshire trust, which serves a population of more than 250,000 people, will use the Business Intelligence system to track and assess referral patterns and support business planning.

It is explicit that it is making the investment to retain its market share of local NHS business.

Heather Norgrove, commercial director at George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust said: “It is very important for us to be able to retain our market share. If we are failing to do this, we like to react quickly to make the necessary changes.”

The Ardentia system has a browser-based graphical user interface that geographically maps referral volumes.

Clinicians and managers can drill down into referral data by speciality, location, patient age and gender, and time period, so they can analyse any changes.

Tom Mulhern, founder of Ardentia said: “With the drive for all NHS trusts to achieve foundation status, more and more providers are looking to fully understand not only their market share across all services, but also how they will be able to retain or increase their market share both during and after the reforms.

"On the commissioning side, there are concerns over the quality of data that GP commissioning consortia will inherit from primary care trusts when the changeover happens.

"Tools like AFA are going to be really useful in helping commissioning consortia to very quickly understand referral patterns in their catchment area, and PCT staff already using them will be ideally placed to assist with the task.  

"Perhaps most importantly, commissioners can compare the service offered by a range of providers in AFA and use that information, along with benchmarking for mortality and readmission rates, to inform contract negotiation.

"When competition on the provider front begins to increase, organisations that can’t monitor patient flow effectively are going to fall behind."