Volume 5 Issue 4 October 2011 Welcome to Knowledge Matters You may notice a slightly different look to Knowledge Matters this time……… On 3rd October, NHS South East Coast, NHS South Central and NHS South West clustered to become NHS South of England. I have been lucky enough to obtain a really exciting role within the new organisation as Director of Information for Service Improvement. This new role provides a great opportunity to spread a number of key tools that have been developed in different parts of the South over recent years to a wider geography and increase our opportunity to benchmark against a greater number of organisations. Along with colleagues in South Central and South West we are currently in the process of gaining access to SUS for the whole South which will enable future updates of selected tools and products to cover the whole of the SHA Cluster. Early priorities will be identifying where duplication of effort currently exists and sharing skills and expertise between the pooled analytical resource across the South to ensure that we maximize this expert team over the coming 18 months. Lots of activity is currently underway to provide information and analysis to inform a number of ‘stock takes’ focused on a range of clinical and geographic areas. Over the coming weeks, I will be identifying with colleagues based in Newbury and Taunton the quality and safety indicators which are currently utilised—this in turn will inform work to specify a balanced set of quality and safety measures for regular review. The Quality Observatory were of course very sad to bid a fond farewell to Candy Morris who has been a greater supporter of the work of the Quality Observatory over recent years (and an avid reader of Knowledge Matters). To mark Candy’s departure, a special Quality Observatory mug was ordered for Candy and a good bye poem constructed by our in-house poet which appears on the back page. Thanks Candy—we will miss you! Key points to draw your attention to in this issue are: the publication of the Summary Hospital-Level Mortality Indicator, the current consultation on the Fundamental Review of Data Returns, the launch of free-to-use on-line learning resources for knowledge management and the recent launch of a mentoring scheme for informatics professionals. And for those of you intrigued by my unusual September holiday, turn to page 9!
Inside This Issue : Summary Hospital-Level Mortality Indicator Published
2
Skills Builder
6
Ask an Analyst
14
Variation in Outcomes Competition Results
3
Jailbreak—the Prison Health Dashboards
8
Tip of the Month
15
VTE Dashboard
4
Enhancing Quality Update
10
Calling Informatics Mentors and Mentees
16
Knowledge Management Modules
5
PbR Benchmarker Update
12
Analysis Ancient & Modern : Farr-sighted
18
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