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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

STRATEGIC PLAN &

ROADMAP

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Paper Business Intelligence Strategic Plan & Roadmap

Issue Name DRAFT

Issue Number 1.0

Issue Date January 2015

Version 1.0

Authors Nick Lewis, Ruth Yates, Mark Saul and Harjeet Dhaliwal

Approved by Denis Lenihan and Stewart Bond

Further Information

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Introduction

Summary Through the delivery of this Strategic Plan, we will be able to deliver a successful Business

Intelligence service that is responsive to customer need, competitive and cost effective while it

establishes itself in the marketplace.

We have the opportunity to take advantage of considerable in-house expertise and existing

infrastructure to create a marketable Business Intelligence suite of products, which will benefit the

CSU in supporting its customers and the patients they serve.

Mission To deliver a first class service, providing commissioning organisations with the intelligence they need

to transform and optimise services and improve outcomes for patients.

Vision Our Vision is to use highly specialist skills, analytical expertise and cutting edge reporting tools to

present relevant, insightful and timely health and social care data to enable Commissioners to act:

identifying opportunities, understanding what good looks like, establishing mechanisms to measure,

monitor and predict and providing assurance on the delivery and evaluation of redesign.

We understand our customers and work with them to develop a service which can respond swiftly to

client need. We invest in our staff to ensure they have the skills to deliver guidance, advice and

assurance on local delivery.

Current context for delivery In summer 2014 the CSU Business Intelligence Services across Central Midlands, Lancashire and

Staffordshire were merged into a single Department.

We have carried out a SWOT analysis of our current state to inform our Strategic Plan.

Strengths

Established BI Product(s) and Tool(s)

Established DSCRO

Highly skilled Staff

Established customer base

Good quality health and social care data sets

Weaknesses

Fragmented offer, very bespoke in places

Some dissatisfaction with service among CCG customers

Difficult to integrate across geographies

Opportunities

Deliver BI service to other Commissioning organisations

Improve efficiency and effectiveness by integrating and delivering at scale

Offering data processing service

Threats

Dependent on IT for successful delivery

Challenging market to attract and retain analytical and developer staff

Restrictions on the ASH status for CSUs

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Strategic Goals

Operational methods: To fully integrate the service across current geography

Financial goals: To provide BI Service/ Products to new commissioning customers and bring

in new income streams

Customer relations: To improve customer satisfaction levels

Organisation members: To build a highly skilled workforce that can deliver insight and innovation

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Goal 1: To fully integrate the service across geography

Background

In the context of a challenged financial environment for our CCGs and against a back drop of

efficiency saving requirements, we have prioritised service integration as a Strategic Goal. By

integrating services and infrastructure we can increase productivity, improve our product offer,

create resilience and invest in the skills and expertise of our staff.

At the outset of the programme of integration we identified four key work streams and work stream

leads:

DSCRO & Data Processing

Data Warehouse

BI Portal

Insight and Analytics

The work stream group has been responsible for making a number of key decisions to fully integrate

and improve the BI service offer for our CCGs, GP Practices, Area Teams, Independent Healthcare

Providers and other CSU functions. This group has also been responsible for proposing the new BI

Departmental structure that will be shared with staff via the CSU consultation process.

The work stream leads meet on a regular basis to agree actions and co-ordinate delivery. They have

set up a number of Task-and-Finish groups to deliver the integration programme. These groups act

as a Multi-Disciplinary Team designed to collaborate on the deliverables identified in the Strategic

Plan.

We will keep staff up to date on the progress of the Task and Finish Groups delivery by maintaining a

blog for each group on the Staff Portal and a set of Programme documentation.

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Principles for Integrated Working

The Strategic Plan is designed to provide a clear vision of where we are heading as a service. A Road

Map for integration also needs to consider the principles of how we want to work together. This will

require a number of cultural, technical & operational adjustments to be realised in order to support

effective BI delivery. The following sets out the Principles we have agreed that we will follow:

Analysts and Developers will work together on product development; this will ensure that

products are higher quality; that we make most effective use of staff time; and that products

are delivered quickly.

We will be proactive in ensuring that the work we do delivers benefit widely; produce

analysis and reporting that has the potential to be used anywhere, avoid silo working, find

mechanisms to share work centrally.

We work closely with other CSU functions to ensure delivery; particularly working with IT

to ensure that delivery is not compromised by customer IT issues

We will develop a culture that promotes sharing and develops opportunities; To get buy in

from everyone about how we should be working/valuing each other

We will be proactive in communicating with our staff; organise regular opportunities for

staff to meet senior management and ask questions, regular broadcasts on the delivery of

the Strategic Plan and encourage use of the Staff Portal for BI staff to share and collaborate.

Work stream delivery

DSCRO & Data Processing

The Data Service for Commissioners Regional Office (DSCRO) will continue to be hosted at Central

Midlands. As considerable investment has been made in the Central Midlands technical

infrastructure it was agreed that this is where all DSCRO data processing should be undertaken. This

includes processing of all patient identifiable data.

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Other aggregate datasets such as performance will flow directly into CSU Data warehouse initially,

but will be reviewed if value can be added by DSCRO processing.

There are a number of key data sets for DSCRO processing including : SUS, NHAIS, Risk Stratification,

Community, Mental Health, Primary Care, SLAM

Key deliverables:

Risk stratification data processing.

Data Services for Commissioners Regional Office (DSCRO) environment construction and

hosting

Separate infrastructure for DSCRO and CSU Data warehouse

Processing data “at scale” with a single source (i.e. one version for all datasets)

Provide outputs with “value added” information e.g. calculated fields for length of stay,

nursing home flags, etc.

Pseudonymisation

Data quality programme

Close down of MicS Portal as Aristotle rolls out to CCGs

Data Warehouse

The Data Warehouse will be hosted in Blackpool and will be an expansion of existing infrastructure

(currently supporting Lancashire delivery). The funding for the new infrastructure has been acquired

and will be operational as soon as achievable though this will not be until the new financial year due

to order and delivery dates and deployment timescales.

The current Data Warehouses in Staffordshire and Central Midlands will be phased out or re-

deployed over the next 18 months. Data warehouse staff across the patch will work collaboratively.

Current reporting for Central Midlands and Staffordshire will need to be moved from existing Data

Warehouses in line with Aristotle roll out (see below) to ensure that all reporting is coming from the

same source.

There will be separate servers to support Aristotle (see below) and Analysts. Requirements

gathering for this work have begun. In order to provide the best possible infrastructure to support

the delivery platform, the existing Blackpool VMware server and Storage Area Network environment

provides the most cost effective solution overall. This benefits the CSU in already being established

and provides a resilient infrastructure in which to host its Business Intelligence services, providing

greater performance and expansion capabilities, building on an infrastructure that is also under

manufacturer warranty until 2017.

Key requirements:

Secure

Customisable

Supporting automation of routine tasks - “Do it once”

Supportive of ad-hoc querying

Key deliverables:

Analyst and reporting cubes

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BI Portal

Aristotle will be rolled out to Central Midlands and Staffordshire CCGs in three phases between now

and August.

In the first instance Aristotle will be rolled out ‘as is’ but the Task-and-Finish groups will map existing

reporting to Aristotle, identify gaps, and detail and prioritise development requirements for the

work stream leads to discuss and approve.

For contract reporting local data owners will be responsible for reconciling reporting before it goes

live on Aristotle each month.

Following an exercise to gather expert advice and appraisal of the current data warehouse

infrastructure and alternative operating platforms, the decision was made to go with a Microsoft

SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 combination. This provides a platform to meet the

primary requirements, offering a secure environment with the flexibility of an adaptable, friendly

user interface. This enables the delivery of a CSU Business Intelligence solution compatible with

existing customer desktop infrastructure.

The delivery via SharePoint enables a swift deployment and product development of a ‘Business

Intelligence Portal’, benefitting from SharePoint’s flexibility and the BI skills and tools already

prevalent within the CSU and CCGs.

In order to further support this means of delivery and platform of choice, the purchase of Microsoft

software assurance allows access to the latest versions of the software without any further upgrade

license costs until March 2016.

This enables the CSU to take advantage of evolving Microsoft SharePoint and SQL software, as and

when ready to do so, supporting continuous development over the next 3 years.

Key requirements:

Intuitive - Simple to use and easy to understand

Flexible, Adaptable

Exportable

Contract monitoring reporting

Utilising the most appropriate reporting delivery tools - “not one tool fits all”

Delivered with seamless integrated security (no multiple logins wherever possible), a web based

portal available on all desktops and mobile devices – “access whenever you need it”

Compliant with mobile working

GIS mapping

Capable of hosting bespoke CCG developed reports which can be delivered at Practice level

Expandable allowing future development opportunities

Key deliverables:

BI content for CCG Executive Team Reporting

Full Contract Monitoring and Contract Management reporting tools

Provider/Commissioner Performance and Quality reporting

Risk Stratification Reporting Tool

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Patient activity reporting

Benchmarking

Practice Quality Outcomes Framework & Quality and Productivity reporting (QOF & QP)

CCG Performance reporting

Prescribing reporting

Dashboards

Customer comment capabilities

Data Alerts and subscriptions

GP Practice system integration

Insight and Analytics

There has been a revolution in Health Informatics over the last five years and what it means to be an

Analyst in the NHS has transformed in that time. This Strategic Plan is designed to clearly set out

how we will pull together a fully integrated service where we’re using the right people, in the right

places to do work that delivers real value to Commissioners.

We have identified a number of Quick Wins on the integration of the service which we have begun

to implement:

We will organise regular events bringing together BI staff to deliver strategic direction give

provide opportunity to meet each other

We will standardise job titles, descriptions and person specs across the whole patch.

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We will develop an Insight Programme of Analysis which will deliver to all 24 CCGs (and

potentially other customers)

We will develop an integrated Product Offer which describes the BI services and products

that we deliver to customers

Analytical staff will be involved in all of the Task and Finish Groups which will act as the primary

mechanism for delivering integration.

As part of developing our staff (see Strategic Goal 4) we will put in place the technical skills for staff

to routinely produce analysis at scale, building automated reporting which will support the local

delivery of insight. We will also offer support to staff in growing expertise in relevant datasets and

how to use them intelligently.

Our Insight Programme of Analysis will be designed to address the core Business Intelligence

requirements of our CCGs so that we can, over the next 12 months, reduce the reactive and fire-

fighting nature of our work. We will create a portfolio of analytical work to inform the Aristotle

Development Programme and provide an opportunity for Analysts to collaborate and share work.

We aim to better support hub and embedded staff by integrating and automating the current

reporting portfolio, understanding wider customer requirements and adding value to the day to day

work of our analysts.

Key deliverables:

Bi-annual analyst awaydays

New Job Descriptions and Person Specifications for all analyst roles

Insight Programme of Analysis

Integrated Product Offer

Skills and knowledge matrix based training opportunities

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Goal 2: To provide BI Service/ Products to new commissioning customers and

bring in new income streams

Background

The Business Intelligence function is currently made up of a number of legacy services reflecting the

fast paced changes to Commissioning Support Units over the last three years. We have described

the plans we have put in place to integrate the service and deliver benefits to existing customers,

but we also need to consider how we build a service that can be delivered to new customers.

It is critical for us to bring in new income streams to enable us to invest in new products and

innovations so that the service for existing customers remains the most attractive in the market and

that we contribute to the future stability of the CSU by attracting new BI customers.

CSU Business Intelligence staff have very limited commercial experience and, as a result, there is a

risk that we could fail to have a successful strategy on the growth of new business.

As a function we will need to develop a commercial identity, pursue strategic partnerships with

private and public sector and create a simple and easy to understand pricing structure.

Work stream delivery

DSCRO & Data Processing

There may be opportunity to collaborate with other DSCRO functions to further exploit

opportunities to deliver data processing at scale. These will be explored with colleagues from other

CSUs.

There are also potential opportunities to offer a Data Processing service to colleagues outside of the

NHS. These will be explored once the integration programme has stabilised.

Data Warehousing

Opportunities for developing new business on Data Warehousing will be limited and the initial focus

will be on integration. However, early opportunities include offering a Data Warehousing function

to other public sector bodies, especially Public Health and Social Services, where the opportunity

arises.

BI Portal

Again, in the first instance, the focus will be on integrating portal delivery across existing customers.

However, future opportunities include developing an Aristotle Lite product offer that could be

deployed quickly to new or potential customers.

Insight and analytics

Delivering a new Integrated Product Offer will give our customers and staff a clearer picture and

shared understanding of delivery and will also enable us to clearly demonstrate to potential new

customers what they could buy from the CSU. We will make the full BI service attractive to new CCG

customers outside current geography and ensure that we put the processes in place to make

delivery scalable.

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With an analytical, insight based approach we will proactively seek out and successfully manage a

wide range of relevant datasets to add value. In addition to giving existing and potential customers a

pathway based approach to intelligence through linking Primary, Acute, Community, Mental Health

and Social Care data, we will use geographic, demographic and commercial population segmentation

datasets to enable us to present a wide range of metrics to give a deep and contextualised picture to

Commissioners.

Where possible we will build our reporting and analytics using National datasets so that we can talk

to potential new customers with expertise about their Commissioning challenges and opportunities.

We will take a proactive approach in providing potential customers with free samples of the work we

produce to demonstrate the value of our service.

We will demonstrate to existing and new customers our knowledge, experience and expertise, on, to

deliver intensive Commissioning Intelligence Support consultancy on specifications submitted to the

Lead Provider Framework.

Key deliverables:

Integrated Product Offer

Case studies demonstrating our effectiveness

Portfolio of reporting which we can run for anyone

Clearly branded outputs

Effective management and linkage of the Big 5 datasets (Acute, Community, MH, Primary

and Social Care)

Demand based activity and finance planning and monitoring model

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Goal 3: Improve Customer Satisfaction Levels

Background

While it perhaps inevitable that, as we move into a competitive market for the procurement of

Commissioning Support Services under the Lead Provider Framework, we will lose some of our

existing customers, it is critical that we put measures in place to ensure that we are keeping existing

customers happy with our service.

We don’t currently have in place reliable mechanisms to measure the levels of customer satisfaction

with our service. The existing process has very little service line reporting and the scoring from

customers is often done by someone who does not directly use the BI service. We will:

Establish a staff group to identify and implement a set of recommendations on how we

regularly capture customer satisfaction with our service and what mechanisms we need to

put in place to improve the way our customers feel about the service.

Consistently share the results of customer satisfaction surveys with staff to motivate staff to

improve and maintain satisfaction levels

Work with the Staff Development function to improve the process of collecting and

measuring customer satisfaction.

Create straightforward and effective mechanisms for embedded CSU BI staff to feedback on

customer expectations and requirements; creating a timely and responsive service.

Principles for Delivering a Customer driven service

All of our CCG customers are important; we will work flexibly to ensure that we deliver a

consistent service across the patch, using our size gives to provide a resilient service.

Customers will be engaged regularly; during development; this will stop us creating

products that we ‘assume’ customers want, prevent release of products to live portal which

then have to be withdrawn and amended due to not meeting customer need.

Delivery comes first; all parts of the Business Intelligence function need to pull together to

prioritise the delivery of our Product/Service offer.

Customers need to be confident in our expertise; having specialist, highly skilled staff

working to a clear remit on a day to day basis with our customers will give them confidence

in the service we deliver.

Work Stream Delivery

BI Portal

We recognise that an important part of keeping the service we deliver relevant and useful is to

regularly engage with customers as part of the service and product development process. While

development will be undertaken by CSU BI, it must be informed by customers. We will:

Engage with customers to ensure that report and portal design is customer focused

Develop Steering Groups to include customer, primary care data quality, training and IT

providers so that all parties critical to successful delivery share ownership

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Regularly consult CCG BI Leads to maintain visibility and reinforce customer driven approach

Carry out testing focused portal and report design

We also need to ensure that we are clear and confident in our delivery of products and services to

customers to ensure they recognise we can meet their needs. We will:

Have a flexible approach to training sessions to ensure they are designed to meet the needs

of the audience, are held at a convenient time and place and delivered by suitable trainers.

Engage customers in the design of training sessions so that we are clear on how our

reporting tools meet their business requirements.

Provide additional sessions to pick up new staff and refresher training for existing users

Critical to the successful delivery of Aristotle will be the use of the product by CSU embedded BI Staff

to respond to customer demands. It is critical that our staff actively promote the use and benefits of

Aristotle to customers and that it becomes an essential part of operational delivery of the CSU

service.

We have accumulated considerable experience of what works in delivering BI and the current

programme of integration, in particular the planned roll out of Aristotle in Central Midlands &

Staffordshire, will build on that knowledge base. To facilitate this, we will:

Work in partnership with our customers to ensure that we deliver products that they need

and benefit from

Devise a customisable Aristotle implementation package when rolling out the product

which can adapt to different customer priorities

Measure/capture customer experience data from the roll out process

Through a combination of customer partnership, new technologies and national guidance we will

continuously improve delivery to enhance the experience of existing customers and improve the

commercial opportunities for Aristotle

It is clear from experiences to date that certain fundamental criteria must be met to secure

customer confidence and trust

Ensure the information can be trusted - implement standardised reconciliation processes

Ensure top to bottom reporting - the same information can be used for board reporting and

can drill down to patient level where permitted

One version of the truth - be the sole trusted source for information

Save the customer money – provide BI tools which monitor contract performance and

identify opportunities to challenge providers

Insight and Analysis

Our approach to delivering customer driven insight and analytics is to focus on the questions that

CCGs need to answer to become effective Commissioners. In our development of an Integrated

Product Offer we will consider:

What tools and reporting do commissioners need to understand demand?

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Who are the people that would most benefit from service change and what are the most

effective ways to reach them?

What activity and finance planning will Commissioners need to understand and model as

part of the annual Planning round?

What opportunities are there for Commissioner’s to improve outcomes and reduce cost?

How can Commissioners best measure the impact of the plans they have put in place?

What was the effectiveness of previous plans to improve outcomes and/or reduce cost?

We already have highly skilled BI staff embedded with the CCGs to support them with their day to

day Business Intelligence needs. It’s critical that we use the evidence of what customers are asking

for to inform our delivery. To do this we will implement the use of an Information Request System

which will enable us to capture and analyse what customers are asking for.

There are a number of ways a customer driven approach needs to be part of routinely delivering

analysis, including…

Devising and sharing a list of useful prompt questions for Analysts to use in discussions with

customers to understand requirements

Taking a proactive approach to understanding how well the service that has been delivered

met or exceeded customer expectations

Asking the ‘so what’ question of all the work we produce

Producing analysis that can be run for all customers to give them insight they haven’t asked

for

Evaluate service delivery and effectiveness

Demonstrating the value of products and services via the use of testimonials, case studies

and National evidence

Demonstrating the resilience and strength of the CSU BI offer by supporting embedded staff

with the things the customer didn’t ask for, but would value

Key deliverables:

Integrated Product Offer

Gap Analysis of service delivery

Prompt questions for requirements gathering

Information Request System

Customer feedback mechanism

Insight Programme of Work

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Goal 4: To build a highly skilled workforce that can deliver insight and

innovation

Background

Providing a Business Intelligence service in the Health Sector requires specialist staff and the

opportunities for people with the right skill set and experience have grown significantly in recent

years. As a result we have found it difficult to recruit and retain the staff we need to develop and

deliver the service.

Results from recent staff surveys indicate that our staff don’t feel they have had the training and

development that they need to do their jobs properly.

Our fourth Strategic Goal is designed to address both the broader market issues and the immediate

needs of existing staff across analytics, information management and development.

If our Staff grow in confidence, our customer’s confidence in our service will grow.

Work Stream Delivery

We have identified a number of Quick Wins that need to be undertaken by all Work Streams; to

address some of the more immediate concerns we will:

Run 2 hour workshops in December/January for all staff with line management responsibility

to outline what you need to do with your staff on setting objectives and pulling together

Personal Development Plans

Produce Technical Skills Matrix for staff to use to identify and address gaps in their skill set

Promote the use of Workshops for staff to set up and run to address gaps in knowledge and

understanding

Inspire training

Our longer term strategy is to develop the culture of the organisation so that staff are given the

opportunity to be creative and innovative in using the data to deliver deeper insight and share

knowledge and understanding with each other. Out main areas of focus in developing Staff will be:

We will develop a workforce plan addressing the recruitment and retention of analytical and

development staff, Trainee Analyst programme, knowledge management and sharing and technical

and analytical training.

All new members of staff will have a formal induction programme and we will follow CSU processes

in setting annual objectives, appraisals and running regular 121s for all Staff.

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Key deliverables:

A detailed Workforce Development Plan

A BI Induction Programme

Departmental objectives

An Analyst Trainee Programme

A Competency Framework for Analysts

Management and Leadership Training opportunities

Technical training opportunities

Knowledge and information sharing forums

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The overall delivery of the BI Strategic Plan It is our expectation that all BI Staff will contribute to the delivery of this strategic plan. The actions

and deliverables outlined in this plan should be reflected in Personal Objectives and Personal

Delivery Plans.

The main mechanism for delivering this Plan is via the Task and Finish Groups. While Leadership of

these Groups is determined by the Work Stream leads, we are making the commitment that all Staff

will be given the opportunity and time to be involved in at least one of the Groups.

Detail on the Task and Finish Groups that we have currently established, their purpose, deliverables

and progress to date, are available elsewhere and will be regularly updated. The Work Stream leads

will meet weekly to review progress against the delivery of the Strategic Plan, in particular

monitoring the Task and Finish Groups.