Plymouth Employs iSOFT Business Intelligence to Raise Labs Performance

iSOFT, a CSC company, has agreed a deal with Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust for a business intelligence tool to boost performance across its three busy laboratory departments, to deliver continuous service improvements.

Drawing information from the iSOFT laboratory system at Plymouth, the new solution will provide a dashboard to monitor key performance indicators in real time. This includes the turnaround times of test samples to guarantee targets are met. The trust faces local and national NHS targets for A&E specimens for instance, plus contractual targets for commercial treatment centres and private healthcare firms.

The solution will used across all three laboratories at Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital and across all laboratory disciplines, including histopathology, microbiology, haematology, and clinical biochemistry. The trust’s Pathology Directorate employs 257 staff and conducts 6.5 million tests on 1.3 million specimens a year.

“The iSOFT solution will allow us to proactively manage specimens to identify potential breaches in turnaround times before they become critical,” said Adrian Heathcote, the trust’s pathology IT manager. “This represents a fundamental shift in ethos.

“It is impossible to monitor targets in real time using the data extract tools commonly found in pathology departments, so breaches only become apparent after the event,” he added. “The solution will help mitigate risk and is an additional tool to help us continue with our other customer-focused service improvements.”

A second phase will see iSOFT’s laboratory business intelligence solution used to optimise workflows and improve performance. This includes plans to examine demand to ensure the right people and skills are in place at peak times and to pinpoint bottlenecks.