In our latest think-piece project business analyst Jayne Catley argues that if “you’re not measuring it, you can’t manage it.”
Our Programme Management Office have been working on managing benefits for many months and I’ve provided a brief look at how we’ve gone about it.
Firstly, it’s important to ask what is a benefit and why do we need to identify benefits? A benefit should represent an improvement resulting from an action. Any project should have a good reason for existing in the first place. Otherwise, why do it?
Once benefits have been identified then there are concrete reasons why a project should go ahead. It’s important to set a baseline so that you know where you are starting from i.e. a task takes 10 minutes per day or a function costs 5p per transaction. Then over time you can measure how the benefit is doing, whether it is increasing or decreasing. This will help you ascertain if the benefit is being realised i.e, decreasing effort/costs.
DCR Benefits
At the beginning of DCR programme, an early key benefit identified by the PMO and partners was to have health and social care information in one place. This is still key today. Since then, as new benefits have been identified they have been reviewed and consolidated. So, the types of benefits of the DCR today are:
- Time saving
- Paper and printing reduction
- Improved patient safety
- Improved care of patients
- Improved patient experience
The benefits are recorded and tracked in an aptly named ‘Benefits Tracker’. They are checked that they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) and monitored to record if the expected benefits are being realised.
A calculator spreadsheet is used to record roles, numbers of users and associated salaries which enables us to record monthly the cost saving for time and paper across all the partners. In the year 2021/2022 this equated to over £2m.
Benefit Realisation
Benefit realisation is an ongoing process, but a key activity is to ask the people who use the DCR how it is helping them in their job. This is done by sending out an annual survey to all the DCR users which asks questions relating to the bullet list above. The results of the survey are analysed and recorded in a document and the data is used to report to the DCR Working Group and the Implementation and Strategy Group on a regular basis.
An example from the most recent survey showed that 95% of users save time using the DCR and the main reason given is they no longer have to call other departments for information because it’s on the DCR. This has a knock-on effect because the time they save frees them up to perform other tasks in their health or social care role.
Benefits are not easy!
It’s taken a lot of effort to get the benefits to where we are today so you have to be prepared to put the effort in. However, on the flip side, for me the most rewarding part of the whole process is seeing so many positive comments from DCR users who say how much it helps them and their patients daily. One such comment from a hospital staff member said ‘information is available 24 hours a day, it’s amazing’.
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