Showing posts with label performance reporting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance reporting. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 May 2009

The Context to Performance Reporting in Government

Reporting on performance across the government sector has traditionally been an internal process of providing static indicator reports of current state against baselines and targets to senior managers and elected officials. In parallel, there has been an external process of providing reports and data to a central government agency and an auditing body. Content of performance reports has often been driven by the reporting specifications of the central agency – as such the content and style of reports reflects the needs of this audience but rarely those of others.

However in recent years the situation is changing fast. There are increasing pressures on government bodies worldwide to demonstrate the effective use of public resources. There has been a widespread emergence of performance and results-based management approaches with renewed emphasis on results-oriented business planning, accountability and performance reporting. Agencies are now seeing the benefits of implementing these performance management practices.

How have these developments impacted on performance reporting? Internal reporting is becoming more sophisticated with the use of hierarchical scorecards to present a balanced view of performance tailored to different stakeholders. Visual markers and traffic-light colouring are often used to highlight underachievement and exceptions. Externally, public agencies are being actively encouraged to make their performance reports available to a wider citizen community. There are many challenges to this process not least how to present information to users in a way that is engaging, relevant, understandable and useful in the context of expectations that are rapidly becoming more sophisticated.

The context within UK government is covered in more detail at the following page, please visit for further details > Peformance Reporting and Mapping

Article Keywords - performance reporting, performance mapping, performance map, performance dashboards, performance analysis tool, statistical data presentation, statistics visualization, performance measuring, performance indicator reporting, data presentation methods, interactive reporting, performance mapping tools, development statistics software, performance mapping charts, area profiling

ARTICLE SOURCE - http://www.instantatlas.wordpress.com

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Swine Flu H1N1 Atlases published with InstantAtlas

Wednesday, 06 May 2009

In this post we preview the first templates created with the new InstantAtlas V6 Single Map template, the first V6 template to be released. These include atlases created by the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health, Chile on the spread of Swineflu H1N1.

The West Midlands Regional Observatory have also been doing work with InstantAtlas V6. We showcase two of their new applications, one looking at the cultural economy of the region, the other at excess winter deaths. The latter presents work completed in partnership with Sandwell Primary Care Trust.

The month's Spotlight is cast on Performance Reporting and Analysis. We have selected three recent client examples using InstantAtlas present performance reports on key indicators and trends. In conjunction with this focus we are launching a new Resource Pack around Performance Reporting and Mapping of key indicators.

Finally we take a look at a new set of Data & Report Packs to support UK customers of InstantAtlas Server delivering a Local Information System or Data Observatory. These packs reflect interest from customers in streamlining data management tasks.

Featured Application

WMRO | New InstantAtlas Reports

West Midlands Regional Observatory

"InstantAtlas enables us to present data geographically in interactive maps to make it more accessible to our users. It helps to compare and contrast different areas within the region to determine which issues are affecting those areas the most. In particular, we have found InstantAtlas to be a useful tool in helping us to highlight key regional issues and challenges emerging from our State of the Region work, which is publicly available via our website. Other regional partners have also found the tool to be very useful. We are now starting to use Version 6 of InstantAtlas which offers some significant enhancements in areas like performance (we can now display LSOA level data for the whole region) and usability."

Naomi Winchurch, Researcher WMRO

Cultural Economy Atlas
Based on NEW V6 Single Map Template


Sandwell Primary Care Trust and the West Midlands Public Health Observatory (WMPHO) have jointly been addressing the area of excess winter deaths to inform the reducing excess winter deaths programme, an NHS West Midlands Investing for Health project. WMPHO provided the data on excess winter deaths.

The Investing for Health project also examines the relationship between excess winter deaths and fuel poverty. We helped to share this information by presenting data on excess winter deaths and the fuel poverty indicator through interactive maps. You can use the maps to view the data geographically.

View the atlases:

Excess winter deaths index and number of excess winter deaths PCT | Local Authority

Fuel poverty indicator at LSOA

Based on NEW V6 Single Map Template

Swineflu H1N1 | Outbreak Maps

Swine flu H1N1 Atlases

Following the latest pandemic outbreak of H1N1 flu from Mexico and into North America, organizations have been keen to harness InstantAtlas to get the outbreak data out quickly around the world to agency and public audiences. Some of the examples on the special presentation page make use of our new InstantAtlas Version 6 Single Map template.

View Special Presentation

Client Spotlight | Performance Reporting examples

NHS Community Health Profiles

The Association of Public Health Observatories was commissioned by the Department of Health in 2005 to produce Health Profiles. Health Profiles provide a snapshot of health for each local council in England using key health indicators, which enables comparison locally, regionally and over time.

View Report

Norfolk Performance Scorecard

This Instant Atlas report was created to demonstrate how you can present and track a defined set of Performance Indicators (PIs) at a small area (Ward) level. It is an example of an interactive dashboard or scorecard. Two areas can be compared to review current state against target. It can be used to present performance at a much more localised level to enable communities to understand priorities and, potentially, get involved in setting targets.

View Report

Yorkshire Futures: Monitoring Progress in the Region

This report was developed to complement the annual Progress in the Region report created by the Regional Observatory. It provides an interactive picture to explore inter- and intra-regional performance patterns and trends.

View Report

InstantAtlas Resource Packs

NEW - Performance Reporting and Mapping

The value of utilising geography in performance management and reporting is becoming widely recognised. Incorporating geography into performance allows you to:-

1. Understand geographic levels of variation and inequality particularly where there are targets to 'narrow the gap';

2. Rapidly benchmark areas of interest with geographic and statistical neighbors;

3. Identify 'problem hotspots' and target policy and practical interventions more effectively;

4. Make performance reports more relevant and useful to area-based managers and elected officials by delivering performance profile reports using their own geographies; and

5. Meet the rising expectations of your citizen audience by making reports more personalised and useful to citizens.

For more information on the use of InstantAtlas for Performance Reporting see our online Resource Pack

Classroom Training in InstantAtlas

Due to high demand from our customers InstantAtlas are now offering a new and comprehensive classroom based training package. These will be more cost-effective than on-site training. IA Classroom training courses are hosted in our Edinburgh office.

For further details please contact Sophie Lloyd

Latest Product News

InstantAtlas V6 | NEW Single Map Template

The new 6.0 version of the Single Map Template is now available.

This new release delivers significant improvements in performance, presentation, style and functionality. V6 is written to take advantage of Adobe's Flex technology for developing Rich Internet Applications (or RIAs).

To find out more about V6 and when the other V6 templates will be available please contact support.

InstantAtlas Server | NEW Data and Report Packs

CLICK TO VIEW PACK OVERVIEW PDF

OCSI (www.ocsi.co.uk) We are launching a set of Data and Report Packs in partnership with OCSI to support nationally published statistical data, in response to interest from customers in streamlining data management tasks.

With nationally published data - we are (1) adding intelligence to the data through creation of rates, ranks and suitable comparators; (2) enhancing supplier metadata where necessary; and (3) most significantly we are including a range of outputs (Profile Reports and Data Views) built by OCSI which you can then customise if you wish.

Further details of these new Data and Report Packs are available in our Pack Overview (see left to download). Detailed specifications of the packs are available on request - contact John at john.maslen@geowise.co.uk.

Seminars & Conferences

Where to see InstantAtlas

BURISA 2009 Annual Conference

"Location, location, location - Whither Geographical Information"

14th May 2009 - Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, UK

This year's BURISA Conference is the ideal opportunity to catch up with progress and issues in geographical information, demystify the jargon and look ahead to future developments.

URISA's Second GIS in Public Health Conference

June 5-8, 2009 - Providence, Rhode Island, US

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is hosting the second specialty conference to explore the many uses of GIS for public health access, processes, and decision-making. – Click here for Further details of the Conference

North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)

2009 Annual Conference - June 13-19, 2009 San Diego, California, US

This year's conference, "Charting the Course to a New World in Cancer Surveillance" will highlight new directions in cancer surveillance with current and future technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as innovations in bioinformatics and genetics as these impact the cancer data collection

InstantAtlas will be demonstrated at these conferences, if you wish to be given a demo at the event email us at marketing@geowise.co.uk


Friday, 17 April 2009

InstantAtlas – Ebulletin News

In this posting we feature the recently released National Health Episode Statistics (HES) e-Atlas produced by the Association of Public health Observatories (APHO). HES data are widely used and this new resources should make the data more accessible.

We also present a slightly different use of InstantAtlas as a part of the new MapYourName web site. Visit www.mapyourname.com to see the distribution of your name.

Finally visit our new online LIS Resource Pack to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. We have collected all current LIS resources and added two new webinars in December by Norfolk County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.

I hope you find post of great interest.

David Carey
Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk


Featured Applications

National Health Episode Statistics & e-Atlas (APHO)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are record level patient data collected by the Department of Health from every NHS hospital in England and Wales. HES data provides a comprehensive picture of inpatient care that can support public health analysis, planning and resource allocation, benchmarking, clinical audit, monitoring and performance management and research.*

Presenting HES data using InstantAtlas makes the data more accessible. As Steve Morgan, Senior Public Health Analyst at SEPHO says: " "I've demonstrated the software to a number of senior public health specialists and received a great deal of positive feedback – complex data previously once displayed in tedious two dimensional spreadsheets and charts is now transformed in an exciting and more meaningful manner"

The new HES e-Atlas produced by SEPHO on behalf of APHO shows HES data between 2003/4 – 2006/07 in a single map template (by Local Authorities).

It is available at: National HES e-Atlas

*Source and for more information on HES data

Map Your Name

Whatever your name there will be a place in the world it is most common. That place may be a continent, sometimes a country but very often a very specific region or even city or town whose location can be marked on a map.

The purpose of http://www.mapyourname.com is to make it easy for people to learn where this location is.

For the 60,000 most common family names Mapyourname will show their spread not just at country level but right down to the level of individual regions. From these maps most of you should be able to pinpoint the ancestral heartland of your name, and your friends' and colleagues' names, the place where your distant blood relations live, the location of your genetic home.

You can also map the areas where the 26,000 personal names are most common.

Visit mapyourname today and see where your name orginates

Mapyourname.com | Powered by InstantAtlas

Product News

NEW - Local Information Systems (Resource Pack)

Throughout 2008 GeoWise has been producing resources to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. Our experience comes from more than 30 implementations of InstantAtlas Server, our off-the-shelf solution for LIS and data observatories, across local government and NHS organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

Visit our Resource Pack for further details – www.instantatlas.com/lis

InstantAtlas Training Courses

'very well presented, small enough 'chunks' to take it in but large enough to get something from.....'

Maddy Knott

Public Health Information & Knowledge Manager Portsmouth City Teaching PCT

'I found the training excellent. I thought the training was very clear...'

Jim Hawkins

Deputy Public Health Information & Knowledge Manager

Portsmouth City tPCT

InstantAtlas Training Courses now available

GeoWise offers two InstantAtlas Desktop Training Programmes:-

InstantAtlas Desktop FOUNDATION Course

InstantAtlas Desktop ADVANCED Course NEW

InstantAtlas CLASSROOM Training Courses – NEW – contact Sales for Details

Learn how to: -

  • Publish InstantAtlas dynamic reports for different geographies
  • Add and refresh the indicator data
  • Apply personalised designs
  • Distribute the reports.
  • These courses are available either on site at your premises, at our Edinburgh Offices or via WebEx (an online presentation and training tool).

Contact InstantAtlas Sales for more details.

Template Demos (Flash)

Desktop

Server Demo

InstantAtlas Case Studies

NORFOLK DATA OBSERVATORY

Norfolk improves decisions with InstantAtlas neighbourhood data visualization

NDO uses the InstantAtlas platform to provide local intelligence through highly visual and interactive graphical reports, maps, atlases, comparisons and other analyses. >>

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Norfolk Data Observatory on IA Showcase

SHEFFIELD PCT

Sheffield PCT gets the message across with InstantAtlas

Looking for a solution to its need to communicate local health indicators more clearly, Sheffield PCT chose to review InstantAtlas, a software tool from GeoWise which enables the graphical presentation of geographic and statistical data so that regional and local patterns become easy to see and explore. >>

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Sheffield PCT on IA Showcase

DIABETES UK

Diabetes UK uses InstantAtlas to help it inform, promote and campaign

Using InstantAtlas interactive flash based reports, Diabetes UK can demonstrate easily and quite clearly that some regions are better at providing a service such as eye screening or education, than others.

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Diabetes UK on IA Showcase

Keywords - data visualization tools, data visualization software, disease mapping, health mapping, geomarketing, public health statistics, crime mapping, statistical analysis tools, public health observatory, community information systems, geodemographic analysis

Visit the InstantAtlas - Showcase or Client List to see examples of how InstantAtlas is used