Cambridgeshire County Council

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Cambridgeshire County Council

Fujitsu was chosen to develop a multi-agency system to support the new electronic CAT data collection tool. It created an IT architecture that would enable the exchange of information between the wide variety of back-office applications used by different agencies.

Customer’s Challenge

Cambridgeshire is a large and diverse county currently enjoying significant and sustained economic growth. Representing over half a million people, Cambridgeshire County Council is itself undergoing a period of evolution, using new technology to deliver innovative services and high quality customer care through a wide range of initiatives, such as community portals, websites, and 'one stop shops'.

In particular, as part of the modernising government agenda, the Council has been working to meet the Department of Health's (DoH) requirement that all health and social service authorities work more closely together when providing care to older people. The aim is to improve the provision of services using a person centred approach and an emphasis on preventative care, with a single assessment process across all relevant agencies.

Mark Howe, Operations Manager for Assessment and Care Management, Cambridgeshire County Council explains, “Our vision is that every professional involved in the care of an older person will be able to quickly and easily access data on that individual, input new information with the agreement of the person, and alert and involve other agencies as necessary. The intention is to speed up the delivery of services to create better outcomes and avoid emergencies.”

Fujitsu’s Solution

Cambridgeshire County Council's Social Services and health care providers in the county joined forces to create the paperbased Cambridgeshire Assessment Tool (CAT) in order to provide a single source of information on the care needs of older people. The Council quickly recognised that CAT needed to be electronic so that critical information could be shared more easily between different agencies.

Fujitsu was chosen to develop a multi-agency system to support the new electronic CAT data collection tool. It created an IT architecture that would enable the exchange of information between the wide variety of back-office applications used by different agencies. Fujitsu was also tasked with developing a complete mobile solution using hand-held, tablet PCs to enable staff to gather all of the information needed to assess the help and support required by a client in a single visit.

The CAT and multi-agency systems are currently still in pilot phase. Based on CAT's success so far the DoH has accredited it as a best-practice, national assessment tool that the Council can share with other care and health agencies throughout the UK. More than 70 authorities have already asked the Council for information and guidance.

“The multi-agency system developed by Fujitsu to complement CAT provides a 'neutral domain' through which new data can be published to other agencies' systems in the relevant data formats, making it instantly accessible to authorised users,” explains Alan Shields, IT Manager, Cambridgeshire County Council. “As the solution does not involve any changes to existing applications not only is it seamless to the users, but it is also fully transferable and scalable.” The central component of the multi-agency system is a broker device, Microsoft's BizTalk server, controlling the transfer of data into and out of the neutral domain.

“Data sharing is a massive issue within local government,” says Alan Shields. “However, Fujitsu has produced a very solid technical architecture, which not only meets our immediate needs, but which will also form a backbone for other data sharing. It is also an essential enabler to achieving the real benefits of mobile working as there's little point giving someone a mobile device if they can't access the back-office systems to actually do something.”

With the support of a consortium of local authorities and private sector companies, including Fujitsu, Microsoft, European Management Software (EMS), Anite and Visionware, Cambridgeshire County Council is now leading a national project, Nomad, designed to make the delivery of Council services more efficient through the use of mobile technology. Part of a £100 million programme sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), Nomad will pull together all the knowledge and experience that a Council needs to set up a mobile working project.

Benefits to our Customer

The partnership with Fujitsu will enable Cambridgeshire County Council to realise a number of significant benefits:

• Increased Productivity - to provide 1,000 health and social services professionals with accurate and up-to-date information
• Centralised Information Sharing - to minimise duplicate information saving an estimated £3 million
• Comprehensive Data Capture - to improve staff deployment saving at least £100,000 on travel costs
• Streamlined Information Access - to save £850,000 on administration by task automation and increase the time available for contact with patients and clients
• Improved Customer Service - to enable the delivery of a more consistent level of assessment and care, with a focus on individual needs and timely responses
• Optimised Resource Usage - automatically to notify services, such as meals on wheels, when patients' circumstances change and improve hospital admission and discharge processes
• Effective Decision Making - to allow sophisticated analysis and trending on aggregated data, leading to more targeted strategies and better use of resources
• Long Term Return On Investment - new systems, departments or external agencies can 'join in' quickly and cost-effectively.

Alan Shields continues, “The mobile capture and electronic sharing of patient information has proven to be extremely effective. Now we can take the service to the customer and enter information directly into the system, so data quality is greatly improved. The information is also available much sooner for other departments and agencies, which improves our overall patient care.”

“CAT is all about putting time back into the system so that we can meet new government targets and respond more promptly to new referrals,” comments Mark Howe. “Now we can spread CAT to other health and social care services, for example those for children, and later even to voluntary agencies and private sector providers.”

Our Approach

CAT uses a hand held tablet PC to gather and collate information in a single visit that can be disseminated among the relevant agencies without the need for several visits and repetitive questioning. The tablets have a GPRS card which allows users to connect to back-office systems via Vodafone's GPRS network. The tablets employ Windows XP and allow the use of advanced handwriting recognition software.

To provide a complete mobile solution Fujitsu built and configured the tablet PCs then designed, built and configured a device management server so that Cambridgeshire staff could manage the tablet PCs. Fujitsu provided software delivery, asset management, configuration tracking, mobile data backup and recovery plus anti-virus protection; and worked with EMS and council staff on the GPRS connectivity. Fujitsu also provided training to Council staff and initial on-site support.

Alan Shields continues, “With Fujitsu we have developed a robust solution for mobile computing that will eventually extend beyond the needs of Social Services into other Council services, such as Planning, Environment and even Waste Management, and which other Councils can also use with a high degree of confidence.”

Our Expertise

With over 30 years experience of supporting the needs of government departments and local authorities, Fujitsu has a proven track record in providing complex systems integration services and Mobile Workplace solutions that reduce costs, improve productivity and customer services and deliver a compelling return on investment.

“Fujitsu is our strategic IT partner in the move to multi-agency working and person centred care and we are very impressed with the solution it has provided. As well as delivering the right technological input, Fujitsu's integration expertise has brought it all together by working closely with the owners of the back-office systems in the other agencies, Microsoft and ourselves,” says Alan Shields.