PhoenixSoft’s Data Companion solution has been deployed at Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH) NHS Foundation Trust to provide enhanced and real-time access to pathology data to support performance monitoring and rapid response to ad hoc data queries.
MKUH is a medium-sized district hospital that provides a full range of acute hospital services. With around 550 beds, the hospital treats approximately 400,000 patients each year and the trust’s pathology service provides diagnostic services across the five disciplines of haematology, biochemistry, blood transfusion, microbiology and histology.
Pirran Salter, pathology systems manager, explains the rationale for deploying Data Companion: “It is simple – we needed better access to our pathology data in order to monitor turnaround times and KPIs. The time it takes to run our regular queries has significantly reduced now that we are using Data Companion as we no longer have to extract data from the LIMS and then manipulate it in Excel. Using Data Companion makes monitoring our turnaround times and KPIs a much easier process; it has dramatically reduced the amount of time it takes to generate this information. It is also a lot easier to run ad hoc queries. For example, if we want to know how many of a certain test we did two years ago, instead of taking three hours to extract the data, I can now answer this question in minutes!”
Data Companion provides bulk data extraction and subsequent real time update of pathology data into an accessible industry standard database. Through Data Companion, pathology patient and reference data from disciplines including blood sciences, microbiology, histology and blood transfusion become fully available.
As the Data Companion database updates in real time, it is the ideal basis for performance dashboards. Pirran adds: “I am planning to create some visual dashboards utilising Microsoft Power BI which will link straight to the Data Companion database. We are really excited about the possibilities and opportunities now open to us through using the Data Companion database.”
Data Companion is also being used by MKUH’s IT data warehouse team to link pathology data to radiology data and other data across the Trust. In addition to making pathology data available in an accessible format, Data Companion also provides a full data conversion and archive solution.
The Pathology IT team access data directly in the Data Companion SQL database, however laboratory staff at MKUH are able to reap the benefits of easy data access by using PhoenixSoft’s LookUp Companion solution. LookUp Companion is an easy-to-use search solution to provide patient request, blood stock and reference data at the click of a button.
MKUH will be moving to the WinPath Enterprise LIMS in the near future. In addition to regulatory requirements to maintain historical pathology data, MKUH is also recognised as one of the leading NHS organisations for digital innovation and has received accreditation from NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) as part of its Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme. Therefore finding an appropriate archive solution for the Trust’s existing pathology data was extremely important.
GDE accreditation recognises MKUH as an organisation that effectively and successfully uses digital innovations to; improve patient care and experience; enhance and assist staff to do their jobs; and harness the power of data to improve healthcare services in the future.
For more information, visit www.phoenixsoft.co.uk.
