Case study: National Horizon Scanning Centre
They are
- The National Horizon Scanning Centre (NHSC) based at the University of Birmingham and led by Dr Claire Packer.
- Funded by the National Institute for Health Research, they provide advanced notice of new health technologies that may have an impact on the NHS.
- Evaluate pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostic/ screening tests and other health-related activities.
- Work with key health policy makers such as the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE).
They needed
- To manage their work flow and performance against key measures.
- To index their scanned documents and view them from their databases.
- To capture, categorise and integrate relevant emails and their attachments seamlessly with their data
- The ability to view reports as HTML or for them to be exported to Excel and to write and add additional reports at any point.
- Tiered security to maintain data integrity by controlling which users could edit which data items.
We provided
- Expert systems analysis of their existing procedures and new requirements, providing an early prototype system for the team to review.
- Iterative consultation with the NHSC team every step of the way to make sure we delivered what they wanted.
- An intuitive user interface that looks good, facilitates work flow management and contains the NHSC’s required reporting functionality.
- Integration with Microsoft Office to enable email messages to be categorised and added to the database directly from each team member’s Microsoft Outlook application .
- The scalability and tiered security essential to the project.
And the end result?
- An electronic solution, streamlining the NHSC work processes, enabling the team to concentrate on their specialist evaluation activities without having to manage a paper file system.
- All emails and digitally scanned paper document are now indexed and readily available from the database.
- Reports, based on live data, can be produced and, if required, exported to MS Excel. This removes the need to laboriously re-enter data into spreadsheets.
- A system that delivers critical information dynamically at the click of a button.
"The NHSC is a health research unit based in the University of Birmingham. We had a vital business requirement to upgrade our databases to cope with the increased volume and complexity of our work.. Advent IT were recommended to us and they haven’t let us down, developing and tailoring an information system that meets our needs. Advent IT have been professional and extremely helpful throughout and I look to forward to continuing to work with Ian and his team in the future."
Matt Phillips MBA
Project Manager, National Horizon Scanning Centre