SHA sets up data warehouse for PBC

A strategic health authority has set up online access to patient data for its 15 primary care trusts and 330 GP practices to support practice-based commissioning.

NHS South Central SHA’s new service, the Thames Valley Data Warehouse, will hold data on more than 2.2 million patients taken from the SHA’s existing databases and from September will provide GP practices with access to patient-level data and reports, updated monthly.

The service uses the healthware data warehousing solution and a PBC reporting application from healthcare information specialists Ardentia.

Malathi Reddy, NHS senior projects manager, IM&T modernisation programme in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes, said the SHA-wide system would fulfill the key Connecting for Health objective of enabling fast access to patient data for clinicians and analysts.

She added: “The short implementation deadlines for PBC increased our need for consistent presentation of key commissioning data across the SHA. We wanted a simple yet powerful web-based tool to give rapid, clear access to information in a variety of formats, for both technical and non-technical users. By working in partnership with the PCTs in the SHA and with Ardentia we have achieved this.”

The data will show each practice their budgetary position on a monthly basis as well as providing data to help with commissioning decisions. A planned future development is for information to be updated weekly to enable closer monitoring.

Ardentia was selected following an OJEC tender process in early 2006. The new service will be hosted by Buckinghamshire Shared Services.