The Audit Commission has won a national award for its Payment by Results benchmarking system. The Commission's health sector initiative was joint overall winner in the 'Excellence in Healthcare Information Management' at the BT-sponsored 'E-health insider' awards ceremony in London (20 October).
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"E-Health Insider Awards in association with BT"
The award recognises the increasing role of information management and technology in areas such as performance measurement, healthcare commissioning and business intelligence.
'We are very pleased to receive this recognition for what has been two or three years of our lives,' said Howard Davis, PbR Benchmarking Manager, after receiving the award. 'I am proud of the work we did as a team, but I am most proud that this is now being used by senior managers and clinicians to influence the direction of their organisations and to focus resources where they are needed.'
Demonstrating the generally high standard of the entries, the award was won jointly with North Bristol NHS Trust, who entered their business intelligence initiative.
The National Benchmarker was initially designed to target clinical coding audits, but it was clear from an early stage that benchmarking has relevance far beyond just Payment by Results data quality. It can be used to inform many areas of work: world class commissioning and service redesign, efficiency and productivity, quality accounts and data quality in general, contracting and information.
To find out more about the National Benchmarker, visit www.audit-commission.gov.uk/pbrbenchmarking.
The E-health insider awards (external link) are aimed at rewarding the brightest and best in health information and communications technology. E-health insider (external link) is the independent online news and information service dedicated to healthcare information technology issues.