Healthscape: An information management and accountability tool for public health

services

Community and Public Health – A Division of the Canterbury District Health Board

Introduction

• The work of a population and public health unit, such as Community and Public Health (C&PH), is characterised by a very wide range of service provision and activities.

• This broad scope of activity is characterised by service provision in “settings”. Often, different teams from C&PH interact with the same external entities, but for provision of different services.

• Healthscape is an online information system which has been developed to integrate information management, accountability and reporting requirements across the range of C&PH activities, conceptually in much the same way as a patient management system integrates information about an individual patient’s care.

• The system has been developed to make use of existing IT infrastructure and software, delivering a high degree of functionality with low opportunity cost.

• Activity and entity records and reports are freely configurable and adaptable through the system’s user interface, significantly reducing the need for technical intervention and re-design to meet changes in service provision, alterations in organisational structure, and different reporting and accountability requirements.

Prior state: numerous overlapping, mutually inconsistent poorly maintained information sets in a number of different technical formats and software platforms, no differentiation between operational data and reporting information. Access and security issues

Healthscape user interface, presenting configurable record types, forms and reports

Healthscape database

Current / future state: Still numerous and different information management and reporting needs, but now managed through a freely available, consistent, user-driven interface and a consolidated information system.

Key Healthscape Data Objects

Locations / Entities / Processes - LEPs (Things)

Contacts (People)

An LEP can be associated with >= 1 contact person.A contact must be associated with >= 1 LEP

Actions (Work undertaken)

An LEP can be associated with >= 1 action.An action must be associated with >= 1 LEP

Definable attributes

Definable attributes

Staff Reporting Tags

Community and Public Health Active Location / Entity / Process Records by record type

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Community and Public Healthscape: Count of Activity Records per reporting year

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2007/08 2008/09 2009/10