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Developing a primary medical care dashboard

There are many advantages for commissioners from having their primary medical care data in one location. The collection and display of all publicly available data using Microsoft (MS) Power BI and displayed via an app within the MS Teams system makes this data more accessible for commissioners, PCNs and practices, and builds efficiency.  PCC supported one area to develop an updated primary medical care dashboard.

FS
Frances O’Sullivan

Summary
There are many advantages for commissioners from having their primary medical care data in one location. The collection and display of all publicly available data using Microsoft (MS) Power BI and displayed via an app within the MS Teams system makes this data more accessible and builds efficiency.

During the year to March 2022 PCC worked with the head of primary care co-commissioning at a clinical commissioning group (CCG) located in the North of England to develop an updated primary medical care dashboard as a tool for both the primary care team and the wider organisation.

The dashboard was made available to CCG staff as well as local GP practices and is proving to be an invaluable tool. The head of primary care co-commissioning commented that “the development of an updated dashboard as a management tool has facilitated conversations with practices / PCNs as it provides a single version of the truth as both parties are viewing the same data. PCNs are now actively reviewing the dashboard and assisting with its ongoing development with one of the PCN Business Managers leading on the development of a care homes dashboard to support the requirements of the network DES”.

Aims and objectives

The co-commissioner for primary medical care wanted the ability to spot trends and outliers at both a practice and primary care network (PCN) level and to have all publicly available general practice data in one location.

This facilitates acquiring a quick overview of practice performance to gain assurance as well as to allow for the early detection of any issue which may then trigger an assurance and/or contract management visit.

The dashboard also facilitates the writing of reports, drafting briefing papers and responses to questions posed by third party organisations such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Data was to be displayed in both table and graph format with the ability to filter at a practice / PCN / CCG level.

Access to the MS Teams app

With the earlier than planned roll out of MS Teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic and with growing familiarity with the tool it was a logical step to house the dashboard in this application. All local staff have access to this functionality as a meeting tool and for reports generation so the clicking onto an app and navigating between datasets soon became second nature.

Local licencing arrangements needed to be put in place based upon the number of users. Sign up to MS Power BI Premium at an integrated care system (ICS) level means there is no limit placed upon the number of users and so no need to monitor licences following staff changes.

Project needs

A small task and finish group was needed with representation from primary care, quality, business intelligence (BI) and medicines optimisation teams.

The input and capacity of the BI team needed to be acknowledged at the outset as the work required to build a dashboard runs alongside the myriad of other calls upon their time and reporting deadlines.

A task and finish chairperson was put in place to chair the meetings, produce action notes, keep to timeframes, log requests for new indicators and maintain momentum.

Five meetings took place between July 2021 and March 2022 with email support between meetings.

How did we get started

The first MS Teams session established the parameters of the group, what we wished to achieve and timeframes. A primary care dashboard was already in existence for use by the CCG but a more comprehensive tool was required which could also be used by practices and PCNs.

Once the team was in place and a sequence of virtual meetings agreed an open discussion took place to establish:

  • The data to be included on the dashboard
  • The frequency that data is made available i.e. monthly / quarterly / annually
  • How this data would be grouped e.g. patient demography and planning / capacity and delivery / quality and safety etc.
  • The source of the various datasets e.g. NHS Digital
  • How easily the data could be downloaded and managed prior to upload to the dashboard
  • The priority in which each indicator would be included on the dashboard
  • The development of a tracking document called a wireframe to capture ongoing indicator requests and highlight when indicators were complete.

It became apparent that some data sources flowed into the dashboard with relative ease whilst others required a degree of mapping, formatting and cleansing.

It was agreed to publish the dashboard as we went along to ensure it was meeting the established goals and to provide feedback to the BI team around any tweaks that were needed.

Each member of the task and finish group was provided with a MS Power BI licence at the start and encouraged to keep viewing the results.

What did we do next

The task and finish group met five times for a one-hour session between July 2021 and March 2022. New indicators and datasets came through at each meeting and the sessions allowed for discussion around progress and what would be a good next step.

Technical issues and data issues could be discussed and, in some cases changed e.g. it was agreed to use Shape Atlas for practice boundaries and not waste local resources producing a local version.

It was found that the granular questions contained in some data sources changed over time so we needed to be clear how much historical data we would include to support trend analysis from previous years. Quality and outcomes framework (QOF) practice achievement data per indicator proved time consuming to extract so it was agreed to focus upon a select few first i.e. asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD).

The dashboard continues to evolve and a separate app will be developed for non-publicly available data for use by the commissioner only e.g. local enhanced services.

Indicators
The dashboard is divided into a number of domains in order to group indicators which makes navigation more intuitive. A sample is provided in the table below:

DomainIndicators
Patient demography & planningRegistered list sizes
Weighted list sizes
IMD scores
Ethnicity
Age profile
Capacity & deliveryAppointment data
A&E attendance
Extended access attendance
Walk-in centre attendance
Quality & SafetyMedicines management indicators
Incident volumes
CQC inspection ratings
GP patient survey results
F&FT results
Complaint volume

Next Steps

Reports – The dashboard holds a lot of standalone data which can be used to compare performance across practices / PCNs and the CCG as a whole for each indicator. The next step for the primary care team is to design some reporting structures. Once designed the BI team are then in a position to build the template in order to extract data per practice across indicators and thus provide a summary of performance.

Front page summary – it was agreed that the dashboard would benefit from a summary page to pull together data for ten hot topics per month to provide a snapshot of what is happening locally e.g. appointment data, A&E usage, volumes of face to face appointments etc.

General practice rollout – practices were provided with licences and access to the app which has proved very popular as it saves a lot of administrative and search time. One clinician stated that “it saves me a lot of time as I no longer have to carry out several searches in SystmOne to extract the data I’m looking for”.

If you would like to find out more about how we can support you in this area please contact us on enquiries@pcc-cic.org.uk.

Last Updated on 26 September 2022