Meridian is normally supplied as a fully hosted solution. It is a secure web based application. This enables Meridian to be deployed wherever it is needed both at low cost and in short time scales.

The servers are housed in London Docklands. The Data Centre facilities offer very high levels of data and network security, with electrical and mechanical systems engineered with multiple levels of redundancy, and 24/7 protection against fire and natural disasters.

The solution incorporates full real-time mirroring of data as well as daily on site and off site backups.

Meridian is engineered to offer a fully scalable solution. The design of the system offers real-time high performance access to all reporting within the Meridian system.

Meridian is designed to facilitate the import and export of data. This enables simple data exchange between Meridian and any host systems without the need for costly integration.

OCL is an ISO 9001, ISO27001 and ISO 14001 accredited business.

Online feedback provides an opportunity to reach a high volume of patients at a low cost. This also provides a method that enables patients to complete a survey at a time of their choosing, for example following an outpatient appointment. The patients email address can be collected through a simple pop up application at a point in their hospital visit (e.g. via a utility running on a reception terminal) or at the point of booking. An email is then sent containing a URL Link. Upon clicking this link the patient is taken to a Landing Page that is branded to the Trust. They can then complete the survey online. Upon completion the survey is immediately available within the Meridian reporting desktop.

Patient details can be either loaded individually as described above or through a batch load from existing systems.

Multiple surveys or audit scorecards can be accessed through a mobile device or pda. This can provide the ability to transmit results in real time to the Meridian system via wireless connection. OCL can support a wide variety of mobile devices and is not aligned to any specific manufacturers. The more sophisticated devices can support Radio frequency Identification Tags and Barcode together with full camera and audio functions included on the device. Dependent upon the area in which the devices will be used there are medically approved options that are sealed units which are resistant to all medical infection control cleaning fluids.

Some patient groups will require assistance in completing the survey and this is fully supported by Meridian. An assisted completion version of the survey is deployed on the mobile device and the patient is taken through the survey. This can be done by Trust personnel, volunteers or, if required, by interviewers supplied by OCL.

Telephone survey completion is also supported by Meridian. This can be either through outbound calling or, if required, through the provision of an inbound facility. Full scripting is provided to the interviewers completing the survey calls. Again there are options as to the resources that can be used to complete this activity.

Traditionally the conversion rate of paper based surveys is low in comparison to other channels but this remains an important channel to ensure that as many patients as possible are provided with the opportunity to provide their feedback. Meridian can print locally which avoids the expense of stocks of preprinted surveys. This also enables changes to be made to the survey without the need to reprint high volumes or manage version control. Data entry can be conducted by the Trust or by OCL either through scanning or manual entry dependent upon volume and commentary content.

Whilst this is not a technology for all, SMS text provides an opportunity to reach younger patient groups and has a high conversion and extremely fast completion rate (often achieving 90% of the responses within 2 hours). Maternity is a good example of an area where this may be a high take up option.

This provides an option for patients or visitors to complete a survey on site through a Kiosk device. This may be free standing or wall mounted dependent upon the environment. Screen flow is designed for ease of use to encourage high response and accuracy of survey results. Kiosks can be used to conduct full surveys or to simply collect patient details and survey channel preference.

Meridian may be used to control feedback from customer panels or other focus groups. The database can hold multiple different group segments under defined categories. The administration suite provides simple access to select required segments for survey activity. Tools support the creation, maintenance and deletion of customers and segments within the panel framework. As an example, this can be used for holding panels of Trust members. When a consultation exercise is required the system can be used to build an appropriate panel of respondents and manage the process. GPs may be another natural panel as may patients on a specific clinical treatment.

Increasingly the visibility of patient feedback and satisfaction is a top of the mind issue for the Board. Meridian has an Exec Dashboard view that may be configured to headline key performance indicators and summary data. It is possible to export data from Meridian to other Trust systems or to import other Trust metrics for inclusion into the Dashboard view.

Click to zoom.

These views give users information with the ability to drill into that information or explore aspects of it further. This is achieved simply by clicking on links embedded in the data. For example a ward manager may want to view all comments relating to a response of ‘very poor’ against ward cleanliness.

Click to zoom.

Meridian is a true real time system. All data is delivered and analysed instantly, allowing Trusts to take action as quickly as possible.

Click to zoom.

Alerts can be set up through configurable rules within the system administration tools. This enables email alerts to be sent to designated individuals within the Trust where the situation meets specified criteria. This can be used either to identify situations for remedial action or simply to inform an individual that there is a scorecard for them to review.

Click to zoom.

It is possible to view a trend analysis at any level; summary, scorecard, section and question. The period and duration of the trend to be viewed can be selected as can the view type preferred. Trend views often contain previous period overlays or benchmark data and targets for comparative purposes.

Click to zoom.

The ability to drill down to specific comments is often key to understanding the root cause behind both positive and negative responses from patients. Comments are held bonded to individual scorecards and questions. Searches can be conducted on positive, negative or all comments associated with a specific question.

Click to zoom.

Response totals provide a consolidated view of the summary of all responses against a specified scorecard/survey. This may be selected at either a percentage or count view. This page is often used by clients to identify issue areas requiring further investigation. The view also contains a comments count against each question. Clicking on the comments count box will retrieve a list of all comments associated with that particular question.

Click to zoom.

Views are available within the Desktop reporting that illustrate the distribution of results across the given response ranges. This enables evaluation of the spread of results and can indicate consistency, or otherwise, of performance.

Click to zoom.

Regression analysis is available to provide the facility to understand the key impact areas within a given process. A desired outcome, for example a positive response to ‘would you recommend’, is selected as the output question. The regression analysis is run against this output and the report will rank the constituent questions in terms of positive correlation. This enables a Trust to understand what is driving patient satisfaction for different patient groups.

Click to zoom.

It is common for Trusts to use RAG analysis to identify the status of performance across the organisation. Meridian has a view that provides a RAG analysis against defined performance benchmarks. This enables a simple visual representation of strengths and weaknesses across the business. This may be at a process level or a competency level and viewed across any cut of the hierarchy selected. This view is very useful in identifying strong and weak performance areas on both patient feedback and audit results.

Click to zoom.

Action plans evidence ownership of the issues identified and provide an audit trail of follow up actions taken. The concept is to ensure that corrective actions required are addressed by the appropriate stakeholders within the Trust. The Action Plan will typically define the poorest performing areas through analysis of the patient feedback or audit results. The identified stakeholder will then be alerted to the need to complete their Action Plan within the system. This has the effect of driving corrective actions and providing an audit trail of remedial activity. Action Plans are effective at both the strategic and tactical level. At the strategic level there is the ability to identify and review common themes (e.g. training and development needs) across the business.

Meridian provides tracking of usage statistics against all log ons to the Desktop. Access is controlled through password and log on enabling usage analysis to be viewed by individual. This can be used to identify volume of system access and pages viewed. Any training needs can be identified through the usage analysis statistics.

Views can support the measurement and monitoring of specific competencies or ‘clusters’ of questions within any given scorecard. This provides an ability to review specific competencies that may be manifested across several questions within a process being measured. For example the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) may relate to questions 3,4,13 and 15 within a given survey scorecard. These questions can be tagged providing a rating and score for DDA compliance. Multiple competencies may be assigned and enable tracking of performance against various national benchmarks and targets.

Click to zoom.

Meridian uses a business rules tool that enables the definition of the rules and how to apply these against patient responses. The tool is built to enable normal users to configure business rules without any IT programming skills required. As the rules are configurable on line there is instant deployment of changes and any reaction to market or process changes can be made in minutes.

The objective is to provide actions relevant to the feedback received at an individual level as opposed to a generic response. Multiple ‘actions’ can be configured within the system dependent upon the criteria defined.

• Individual email - a specific patient feedback response may trigger an automated response by email that can be pre-configured.
• Telephone contact - a list of required patient contacts can be compiled for a nominated manager based upon the feedback being within specified parameters.
• Patient complaint alert - this may be a ‘Red Flag’ situation where the response triggers a complaint alert.
• Patient contact request - Meridian can queue any patient contact request for actioning by the appropriate route.
• Patient details update - where there is a change to the patient details Meridian can produce a summary for update(s) to centrally held data. This may be done through integration to the host database or through a batch extract process.

Audit programmes can be managed through the Meridian system with alerts and actions providing immediate identification of risk. Examples of the functionality are:

• Management of audit schedule and alerts where audit has not been completed
• Alerts to individuals to remind of forthcoming audit required
• Immediate upload of results ensuring full visibility to all stakeholders
• Configurable actions based upon specific responses
• Full trend history
• Trust wide RAG analysis

Full trend analysis is supported within the Meridian desktop. This allows the user to view trend data on any given level of the data:

• Scorecard (process) level
• Section level
• Question level
• Trust wide
• Hospital
• Clinical Area
• Ward
• Individual

The format of the view can then be selected from standard line graph, bar chart or tabular.

As stated above there is a significant portfolio of analytics tools within the base Meridian system. Where custom analytics are required, this can be defined as part of the implementation phase. The configuration capability of the Meridian system allows for custom analytics to be rapidly built and deployed.