They are

• The National Health Promotion in Hospitals Audit team
• Based at Stockport’s Stepping Hill Hospital
• Led by Dr Charlotte Haynes
• They monitor health promotion in NHS hospitals
• Aimed at reducing smoking and obesity levels, promoting physical activity and encouraging sensible alcohol intake

They needed

• A web-based system to capture data about the extent to which adult hospitalised patients are assessed for and delivered health promotion
• An engaging data entry experience to encourage participation
• Dynamically available statistical analysis for each participating hospital
• Automated validation of a random sample of records
• Access to the raw data at the end of the audit for the publication of a full statistical analysis
• Confidence that their data was being stored securely and backed up regularly

We provided

• An engaging online data entry and reporting portal for hospital staff to enter and verify their data
• Functionality for the dynamic reporting of data.
• A secure and robust system available for access 24 x 7
• Data access for professionals to analyse and present the data in publication form

How we did it

"The whole team at Advent IT has been fantastic to work with on developing the web-based National Health Promotion in Hospitals Audit (NHPHA). They are always very professional and friendly, providing excellent guidance on how the solution can best be developed within our limited budget. We, and participants in the audit, are very pleased with how well the NHPHA data entry system works. We look forward to continued work with Ian, Leo and Matt on further development of the NHPHA."

Dr Charlotte Haynes
Research & Projects Lead

• By working closely with Dr Haynes and her team to understand and fulfil their requirements
• By providing a story board presentation of our design for the team to check and change
• By regularly conveying our progress to the team and reassuring them we were on target for an on time delivery
• By creating a simple and clear user interface using ASP.Net linked to a SQL Server database
• By using the database to authenticate the users and store and validate the data
• By providing functionality to dynamically create statistics and graphical charts for each hospital on completion of their data entry
• By including a facility to download a decryptable dataset for analysing and reporting the final data for use in a publication

And the end result?

• The audit team were able to focus their time on the analysis of the data rather than its collection and data entry
• A very successful audit in 2009 with significant results. Have a look at the summary poster here.
• Extremely positive feedback from the users with over 85% of trusts surveyed recommending the audit to other organisations and all trusts happy to participate again in the future. Read the survey here.