Healthcare business intelligence specialist Ardentia has introduced an updated version of its Patient Level Costing (PLC) solution, designed to give NHS Trusts greater financial visibility at patient-level, helping to drive out inefficiencies and improve patient experience.
A key advantage of Ardentia's updated PLC solution is its ability to unify existing and future reports into a single administration screen for greater flexibility and ease of use. The new Administrators Dashboard makes administration of the system easier, and also gives users the ability to create and enhance administrative reporting to reflect their own site-specific analytics.
Other enhancements include modifications to the system's Flexible Apportionment Filters, meaning customers now have more freedom to create apportionment methods according to their own specific rules. New intermediate costing reports have been extended to give powerful analytics so Trusts can analyse costs generated by theatres and wards, as well as the ability to support multiple pharmacy cost pools.
The solution enables effective cost analysis and reporting, offering a sound basis for Service Line Management. It provides Trusts with a powerful and robust method for costing individual patient records, allowing finance managers to analyse whether care is being delivered within income and identify specific areas for improvement.
By assessing the financial performance of each department, managers can make more informed business decisions and work with clinicians to help improve operational efficiency and deliver Trust-wide savings.
Steve Taylor, sales and marketing manager at Ardentia said: "For Trusts to be able to generate efficiency savings, they first need to know exactly where these can be made, without affecting quality of care. Ardentia's PLC bases financial reporting on actual costs incurred, taking into consideration all the contributing factors from the number of minutes in theatre to the total amount of bed days and nursing hours required. This allows NHS managers to discover the true cost of each treatment, supporting more strategic financial management and ensuring the best use of healthcare resources."
Where fully implemented, patient level costing helps to drill beyond Service Lines to find where, in actual patient care, specific anomalies are arising. This enables both clinicians and managers to focus on areas needing most attention and ensures departments run on a robust business footing.
About Ardentia
Stafford based Ardentia employs 58 staff and works exclusively on the delivery of software for healthcare. With over 100 clients in the NHS, it is the largest dedicated supplier of such systems, with customers at all levels of the health service: hospital trusts, Primary Care Trusts, Strategic Health Authorities and national service suppliers such as Connecting for Health.