{"id":1988,"date":"2022-05-16T07:57:57","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T07:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/?p=1988"},"modified":"2022-05-16T08:23:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T08:23:03","slug":"the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/2022\/05\/16\/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agony and the Ecstasy &#8211; Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In our latest think-piece project business analyst Jayne Catley argues that if \u201cyou\u2019re not measuring it, you can\u2019t manage it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our Programme Management Office have been working on managing benefits for many months and I\u2019ve provided a brief look at how we\u2019ve gone about it.<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, it\u2019s 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?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Once benefits have been identified then there are concrete reasons why a project should go ahead. It\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DCR Benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 \u00a0Since then, as new benefits have been identified they have been reviewed and consolidated. \u00a0So, the types of benefits of the DCR today are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Time saving<\/li>\n<li>Paper and printing reduction<\/li>\n<li>Improved patient safety<\/li>\n<li>Improved care of patients<\/li>\n<li>Improved patient experience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The benefits are recorded and tracked in an aptly named \u2018Benefits Tracker\u2019.\u00a0 They are checked that they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) and monitored to record if the expected benefits are \u00a0being realised.<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 In the year 2021\/2022 this equated to <strong>over \u00a32m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Benefit Realisation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 This is done by sending out an annual survey to all the DCR users which asks questions relating to the bullet list above.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s on the DCR.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benefits are not easy!\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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 \u2018information is available 24 hours a day, it\u2019s amazing\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our latest think-piece project business analyst Jayne Catley argues that if \u201cyou\u2019re not measuring it, you can\u2019t manage it.\u201d Our Programme Management Office have been working on managing benefits for many months and I\u2019ve provided a brief look at how we\u2019ve gone about it. Firstly, it\u2019s important to ask what is a benefit and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1866,"featured_media":1989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,4],"tags":[89,112,200],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/files\/2022\/05\/Jayne-photo-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1866"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-care-record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}