Taunton signs BI deal with SSentif

Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a business intelligence system from SSentif to improve its access to cost and performance data and to enable it to benchmark its performance.

Simon Wombwell, director of finance and IM&T, told eHealth Insider: “Like many trusts in the NHS we need to make savings and in the NHS this can often be like finding a needle in a haystack.

“We have an information and BI team at the trust, but we don’t have access to data held centrally. That is where SSentif came in.

“We had many consultancy firms come in and demonstrate, but SSentif provided a system that was relatively cheap – a few thousand pounds – and delivered what we wanted.”

SSentif was founded in 2004. It claims that its system contains more than 35,000 indicators and more than ten years worth of data about health, social care, and local authority topics such as welfare and planning.

Taunton used the company’s ‘expert assistance programme’ to analyse its data requirements, and to obtain a ‘discovery’ report on performance concerns in key areas. It then placed a two year contract with the company to produce quarterly reports.

Wombwell said: “The discovery report highlighted areas in which – having previously only looked at our own performance – we were both over and under-performing on a national level.

“Equally, there were some positives to be celebrated, with the trust consistently performing well against targets in clinical specialisms such as cardiology, gynaecology and oral surgery, and demonstrating excellent service provision and good value for money in food services.”

He said the data analysis is being used to highlight early signs of the trust going “off-track” in its delivery of services, by helping it to identify issues such as a drop in referral rates, and to compare its performance with other trusts on issues such as bed management.