Touchstone Case Study: Addenbrookes LARDR Data Warehouse

Customer

Addenbrooke Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS trust based in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. The Trust has an annual turnover of around £890 million and employs approximately 6,400 staff. Each year its hospitals treat over 750,000 outpatients appointments and admit over 180,000 patients.

Customer Situation

In 2014, Addenbrookes went through a technology refresh and decided to consolidate 18 of its clinical computer systems into a new “eHospital” system. As part of this upgrade, it was decided that the new eHospital system would not be loaded with historical data. Addenbrookes needed a data warehouse and historical enquiry solution which would allow reporting and enquiry of this historical data. Addenbrookes selected Touchstone to provide the new “LARDR” data warehouse and enquiry solution.

Solution Provided

We provided consultation and on-site services including database design, development and deployment of a new major data warehouse based around SQL server 2012. This included data from areas such as HISS (IP, OP and A&E attendances), pathology, radiology, theatres, cancer, maternity, electronic documents, and many more. We provided a full service including the migration of the existing data and staff training. We designed and provided a browser based (ASP.NET c#) enquiry portal for the LARDR data warehouse data, and integrated this enquiry into their new eHospital system. The resulting data warehouse comprised of over 9TB of data, over 650 tables, 80 enquiry screens and 49 data cubes. All developments included the latest SQL2012 optimised features (such as column indexes) for improved performance. LARDR went like in parallel with the eHospital go-live in October 2014.

Benefits of Service

The new data warehouse allowed the Trust to quickly decommission 18 of its old clinical systems saving £2.2million pounds initially, and a further £1.2m each year going forward (through cancelled hardware and support contracts). Furthermore, the 4,500 staff who regularly access LARDR were now able to access an entire clinical pathway through a single standard interface saving time and effort.

Methods Utilised

Working with the Trust project managers and clinical leads, the design for the LARDR database, cubes and enquiry screens were first designed, then approved, then coded and finally deployed in planned stages. Designs were drawn up and walked through with the clinical leads to ensure that all data was included, and all data was easily accessible. Many leads described the new enquiry screens as ‘faster’ and ‘easier to use’ than the original clinical systems.

External Factors

As part of such a large overall project, cooperation was required from department heads and we worked closely with existing Trust IT departments and suppliers. Touchstone sat on the advisory groups for the eHospital system and project integration group.