The UK Performance Network announced it has signed agreements with the South West Strategic Health Authority and thirteen primary care trusts (PCTs) in the South West as new subscribers. The UK Performance Network was established in December 2008 as a partnership between Mede International, a wholly owned subsidiary of California-based MedeAnalytics, a leading provider of healthcare performance management solutions, and HFMA Commercial Services (HCS), the commercial arm of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), to provide wide-ranging clinical, operational and financial performance comparisons and the sharing of best practices for performance improvement.
Based on the success in the South West, the UK Performance Network has also begun to roll out into other regions, including Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands and London.
The network provides subscribers with dashboards, status reports and alerts on their own key performance indicators, the ability to compare performance across other subscriber organisations and the ability to compare performance across the entire country using national data sets such as quality and outcomes framework (QOF) data, SUS and others. Additionally, subscribers can drill down into the underpinning local data by GP or specialty practice, and into the patient level.
The analytics are supported by an educational programme provided through HCS to facilitate the identification and adoption of best practices to further improve individual PCT commissioning performance.
PCTs in the South West have agreed on an initial set of performance indicators to monitor across the network. These indicators include inappropriate admission rates, total length of stay (including community) and stroke patient management, enabling the PCTs to take a holistic view of GP spending.