Cognos prescribes software to boost NHS Trust’s performance

March 11, 2003 - Gateshead Health NHS Trust is aiming to join an elite group of hospitals with the government's top three star performance rating. The Trust is investing in analytical software from Cognos that will provide senior management with a detailed view of performance on a day-to-day basis.

Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, launched the star rating system in 2001 to measure the performance of individual hospitals against key government targets. Trusts that earn the top three star rating are rewarded with increased autonomy and a far less rigorous inspection regime.

Since going live at Gateshead last month, Cognos’ Business Intelligence software has given senior managers a detailed and current overview of performance. The Trust will use the system to monitor, manage and maintain high performance across a wide range of indicators.

Gateshead Health has invested in 25 Cognos PowerPlay, Impromptu and Metrics Manager licences for its entire management team. It will help senior managers keep a close tab on key clinical indicators such as A&E waiting times, cancelled operations and cancer waits.

Cognos partner, Harvest Information Systems, is responsible for both the design and deployment of the Business Intelligence system at the Trust.

Chief executive of Gateshead Health NHS Trust Chris Reed said: "Good decision-making in any organisation is only as effective as the information that informs it. This is especially true for an organisation as large as ours."

"In the past, it would often take weeks, or months to pull together performance management reports. Now managers can run reports almost instantly via a Web-based interface to analyse performance in a wide range of key areas. This means we can react to and address performance issues quickly and much more proactively."

Graham Walter, managing director at Cognos UK said: "Cognos has seen a huge increase in demand from hospital executives as they come under increasing internal and external pressure to improve their Trust’s star rating. Gateshead is amongst the early adopters of our Business Intelligence software and as such represents an interesting test bed in the run-up to the next performance review in July 2003."

About Cognos, an IBM Company
Cognos, an IBM company, is the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions.

It provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.
Cognos was acquired by IBM in January 2008.

For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/ and http://www.cognos.com/uk/

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