The quarterly MI pack for every client
Each employer on your books expects management information: referral volumes, reasons for referral in broad categories, outcomes, surveillance completion, DNA rates and turnaround. Some want it by site or department. Some want trends over the year. Your account managers export case lists, tidy them in Excel, build charts and paste them into a slide deck.
Then someone notices that one department had only two referrals in the quarter, both for the same broad reason, and the manager of that department could work out who they were. The pack is reworked by hand.
Why MI is so time-consuming
MI combines three awkward things: data from several parts of your service, a different format for each employer, and a real risk of identifying individuals if care is not taken.
- Referral reasons are recorded in free text or inconsistent categories.
- Each employer's structure, sites and departments are mapped by hand each time.
- Small numbers in a breakdown can identify an employee, and have to be spotted and suppressed.
- Charts and tables are rebuilt each quarter because the spreadsheet is not reusable.
- Account managers each have their own approach, so packs are inconsistent.
What that costs
Days of account manager time every quarter go on assembly. Packs arrive late, just before the review meeting, with no time to think about what the numbers mean. The risk of identifying an individual is managed by eye. And the insight employers actually value, what is driving their referrals and what they could do about it, gets squeezed out by the formatting.
Inconsistent categories make trends unreliable. If referral reasons were categorised one way last year and another way this year, the year-on-year chart the employer asks for is comparing different things.
| MI element | Common problem | What we build |
|---|---|---|
| Referral reasons | Free text, inconsistent | Fixed categories chosen by clinicians at case close |
| Breakdown by site or department | Mapped by hand | Employer structure held once and reused |
| Small numbers | Spotted by eye, if at all | Suppression rules applied automatically |
| Turnaround and DNA rates | Calculated in Excel | From recorded dates, per contract definition |
| Charts and pack | Rebuilt each quarter | Generated from a template per employer |
How we build MI reporting
- We agree a fixed set of reporting categories with your clinical lead, recorded at case close alongside the clinical notes.
- Each employer's structure of sites, departments and cost centres is held once and updated from their employee feed.
- Suppression rules set by your data protection adviser, such as minimum group sizes, are applied to every breakdown before it is shown.
- Measures such as turnaround and DNA rates are calculated from recorded dates using each contract's definitions.
- A pack template per employer is generated on schedule, with charts and tables, as a PDF or editable file.
- Account managers review the pack, add commentary and send it, or share it through the employer portal.
Suppression and what can be shared are decisions for your data protection adviser and your contracts. The system applies them consistently every time.
Quarter end afterwards
The pack is ready when the quarter closes. Account managers spend their time on what the numbers mean, which is what the employer values. Small numbers are handled by rule. And trends are reliable because the categories are consistent from one quarter to the next.
Some employers will ask for data between reviews. With the pack generated from live data, answering takes minutes.
The categories agreed with your clinical lead also help your own service. Referral reasons across all employers can be compared, which shows where your clinicians' time goes and which kinds of case are growing, useful when planning staffing or shaping a new service line.
Could this be you?
- MI packs are built in Excel and slides every quarter.
- Referral reasons are free text or categorised inconsistently.
- Small numbers are checked by eye, if at all.
- Packs arrive just before review meetings.
- Each account manager produces MI differently.