IBM Cognos is the glue that brings management and clinical departments together at the Bloorview Kids Rehab center

Bloorview Kids Rehab, known as Bloorview, is Canada’s largest children’s rehabilitation hospital. In 2002, Bloorview partnered with the University of Toronto to become Canada’s first teaching hospital in children’s rehabilitation. The hospital is home to the Bloorview Research Institute, which was created in 2004 through an endowment from the Bloorview Children’s Hospital Foundation.

In 2003, Bloorview’s management team realized it could no longer adequately track and analyze its rapidly growing collection of data. More importantly, the organization needed to make information available in a timely fashion to its clinical users. As a result, Bloorview selected IBM Cognos for its business intelligence (BI) needs, and more recently standardized on IBM Cognos 8 BI. The organization is now able to provide information in real time to its users, and run reports more efficiently, improving information delivery and patient care.

Challenges Faced
Bloorview was a typical Healthcare organization that collected huge amounts of data on paper and in databases without an easy-to-use method to drill into the data intelligently. As the hospital matured, it became necessary for management to have an integrated view of information at all levels of the organization in order to make wise business decisions. Bloorview had an excellent IT foundation to capture data and execute basic reporting functions, but it needed to make information available in an integrated way to users on the management side.

According to Hakim Lakhani, Senior Director of Organizational Effectiveness at Bloorview, the organization was interested in creating a beneficial delivery solution. “We were data-rich but information-poor. We needed to develop a central repository of information that everyone could access in a timely fashion. We also wanted a solution that was easy to use and would not bog down our internal resources.”

Bloorview evaluated proprietary systems, but found they did not have the flexibility to turn information around in a timely fashion. In addition, the organization looked at data repositories that they could access with business tools, but decided against this approach, since the vendors in this field were limited and there was a lack of established industry standards.

Strategy Followed
After considering different approaches, Bloorview decided to implement IBM Cognos in September 2003, and migrated to IBM Cognos 8 BI in 2006. Lakhani selected IBM Cognos because it is the industry standard for BI solutions. “We were interested in going with a product that had been industry-tested and was considered the leader in BI. IBM Cognos was the natural choice. We were very impressed with the product’s flexibility and ease of use.”

Bloorview found IBM Cognos to be extremely easy to install and manage, which translated into significant cost savings as the company was able to install the product using its own internal resources and avoid any outside consulting expense. In addition, Bloorview knew that IBM Cognos was able to adequately address the unique needs of a Canadian Healthcare organization.

“Indicators of information that are important in the US are not necessarily of a high priority in Canada,” comments Linda Hatton, Director of Information Systems at Bloorview. “IBM Cognos was able to understand the needs of our business and provide a solution that was a perfect match. As a result, we have standardized solely on IBM Cognos.”

Bloorview currently uses three components of IBM Cognos 8 BI: IBM Cognos Metrics Manager, IBM Cognos 8 Analysis, and IBM Cognos 8 Reporting. Lakhani estimates that about 100 employees in finance, human resources, and management access IBM Cognos on a monthly basis. The majority are non-technical users from the clinical side of the business.

IBM Cognos works in unison with Bloorview’s Meditech ERP system. “Data from the Meditech modules is fed into a Meditech data repository,” notes Lakhani. “IBM Cognos then runs against the data repository. We have about 34 different models, which define our architecture from Meditech to data repository, and from data repository to the IBM Cognos models.”

Benefits Realized
“IBM Cognos has helped create a new culture within Bloorview. Our users now have the confidence to go to one place and get the information they need when they need it. In essence, IBM Cognos has actually become the glue for our various departments and brought them together to deliver information to the end user,” remarks Lakhani.

In addition to providing end users with the information they need, IBM Cognos has also helped make reporting more efficient. Previously, it took several hours for managers to create certain finance reports depending on the size of the portfolio. Bloorview eliminated Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet-based paper system by allowing users to access the IBM Cognos electronic reports to send information back to finance. The user only needed to open a report, view the already highlighted variances, and update it, then send it back to finance. Bloorview has gone one step further and eliminated the manual steps altogether, replacing them with metric-based reporting that has dramatically decreased process cycles.

In addition, IBM Cognos has helped alleviate the work load associated with reporting. Previously, when an employee needed information on a particular value or scenario, Bloorview would have to run that information against the entire database of a live environment, which could take several hours.

“Now, all the information is already there and can be pulled and organized in any fashion in minutes. The employees can actually run the report themselves, which frees me to work on other things,” comments Hatton.

Lakhani also noted that with IBM Cognos, Bloorview has been able to develop applications that had not been created previously in pediatric rehabilitation. The ability to link information together has huge implications for clinical factors in helping Bloorview learn more about the process of care delivery and where to make adjustments and improvements.

Looking to the future, Bloorview has plans to be a host solution for other children’s treatment centers, and provide IT and decision support services. “Other centers are attracted to what we are able to do through IBM Cognos and are looking to manage their business in the same way from an information gathering and analysis standpoint,” states Lakhani. “We are excited about the opportunity to help other centers realize the benefits of using IBM Cognos.”

About IBM Cognos BI and Performance Management

IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) and performance management solutions deliver world-leading enterprise planning, consolidation and BI software, support and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance. IBM Cognos solutions bring together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers an open, adaptive and complete performance solution. Over 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries around the world choose IBM Cognos solutions.

For further information or to reach a representative: www.ibm.com/cognos