Ardens Product and Service Specification
v1.0. Last updated on 10th October 2024.
Product Specification
Ardens Manager
Ardens Manager is a cloud-based data analytics software application that provides an extensive range of reporting dashboards to support GP Practices, Primary Care Networks and commissioners such as Integrated Care Boards or Local Authorities.
1.1.
GENERAL FUNCTIONALITY
Ardens Manager provides the following functionality as standard to all users:
Automated Data Extraction – data is automatically extracted and processed from the primary care electronic patient record via the NHS England IM1 bulk pairing integration; we currently support practices using TPP SystmOne & EMIS Web.
Benchmarking – data is displayed at GP practice, PCN, Place or ICB level on the Ardens Manager dashboards subject to data sharing agreements being in place. Aggregated reports can be broken down by Organisation or group to compare activity for a single report or overall contract performance.
Trends – activity over time can be monitored at GP practice, PCN, Place or ICB level with functionality allowing for trajectory target setting and progression tracking.
Assigning Actions – functionality to allow assigning of reports and tasks to named individuals. Task progress can be tracked and monitored through its stages from start to completion.
Business Rules – interactive business rules are provided for each report on the dashboards to provide information on the search parameters, SNOMED codes and groups used.
Manual Submissions – functionality for submission and storage of textual Quality Improvement projects alongside specific quantitative metrics.
Patient Identification – Organisations have visibility of patient IDs outputted from a report with functionality to import IDs into the clinical system for clinical intervention or further action. Demographic filters can be applied to refine the list of patients identified.
Report Breakdown – Graphs represent metadata about reports in Ardens Manager to provide a breakdown of report data by patient demographics such as gender, age or health deprivation. Additional graphs show metadata relating to the staff or Organisation completing the activity and the activity codes used within the reports.
This service is compatible with EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne clinical systems in England.
1.2.
NATIONAL CONTENT
In addition to all the general functionality, the Ardens Manager National Content package aims to help users improve patient care, maximise income, reduce workload, and meet contractual obligations through the provision of interactive dashboards that display data in graphical and tabular formats, with drill-down and filtering options.
QOF Dashboards* - enables practices to prioritise and monitor QOF activity in both patient points and financial values. Indicator calculations factor in each practice's capitation and disease prevalence to generate predicted indicative payment figures. QOF case finders allows the identification of potential missing cases and corresponding missed income.
Network Contract DES* – functionality to monitor activity for all areas of the Network Contract DES (NCD) including IIF at GP Practice, PCN, Place and ICB levels. PCNs can also keep track of any additional service requirements with evidence submission checklists and self-declarations.
SMI Health Checks - the SMI Health Check contract dashboard allows GP practices, PCNs, Places and ICBs to monitor and benchmark quarterly SMI activity covering physical health checks, interventions and screening.
NHS Health Checks – functionality to enable GP practices, PCNs and ICBs to monitor their NHS Health Check activity including health checks done (by age, ethnicity and gender), interventions and LTC performance.
Service Management – dashboards present data on services provided by Organisations. With the addition of report breakdown, trends can be identified and interventions conducted to help manage population health.
Governance - a suite of reports is available to be used when carrying out CQC inspections of GP practices. The reports can also be used by practices to identify patients who are potentially at risk from not having care delivered in line with national guidance.
This service is compatible with EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne clinical systems in England.
* Please be advised that the figures presented are indicative and may not correspond to the actual payments from NHSE to the Organisation. Should any discrepancies arise, it is the responsibility of the Organisation to follow the dispute resolution process with NHSE. Ardens does not accept any liability for any errors, or any financial loss incurred by a client, whether real or perceived.
1.3.
LOCAL CONTENT
In addition to all the general functionality, Ardens Manager Local Content package simplifies the process of local content management by enabling Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to design, manage, and monitor local content for primary care in England.
Draft & Review: functionality to help work collaboratively with colleagues to draft contract specifications (complete with version history), specify submission frequency and payment mechanism. Specific indicators can be monitored from a comprehensive library of reports. Commissioners can also predict performance and expenditure using historic practice data. Contract providers can choose to opt-in and out of services here. Functionality exists to allow mid stage reviews and Q&A between ICBs and providers.
Submit, Monitor & Approve: functionality to enable data upload and submission onto Ardens Manager allowing users to monitor and visualise performance and assign reports and tasks. Aggregated data and benchmark provider activity can be monitored at any stage during the contract lifetime. Data uploads and evidence of contract work can be submitted to the ICB for approval. All the stages of submission, approval and payment can be tracked.
Sign: functionality to allow electronic signatures in line with agreed contracts.
This service requires a subscription to Ardens Clinical at the Plus or Pro level and is compatible with EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne clinical systems in England.
1.4.
TECHNICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL MEASURES
Ardens Manager has in place technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data processed by Ardens in order to provide Ardens Manager to Customers.
Ardens Manager operates on UK based web servers. Ardens have in place data processing contracts with relevant third party web server providers that are compliant with Article 28 UK GDPR.
Ardens Manager employs the following technical and organisational measures:
Measures for pseudonymisation and encryption of Personal Data. Only aggregated data is sent on to the database driving the client facing website, ensuring pseudonymisation unless patient identifiable data is enabled by the data controller.
Measures for ensuring ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of Processing systems and services. Our systems are stored inside a hosting environment that is highly available, across multiple zones, and all account access is restricted using the principle of least privilege, and secured by multi-factor authentication.
Measures for ensuring the ability to restore the availability and access to Personal Data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident. Our systems are highly available across multiple zones, and are also backed up nightly.
Processes for regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organisational measures in order to ensure the security of the Processing. Our data is held on servers within our AWS hosting environment, and are securely locked down, with 24 hour proactive monitoring. We also penetration test our environments using independent providers on a regular basis.
Measures for user identification and authorisation. Customers and Authorised Users are each issued with their own login and are able to self-manage their password through provided mechanisms. All platform logins require strong passwords which follow industry standards. Only users who have successfully authenticated through the NHS Care Identity Service (“CIS”) mechanism and have role-based access permissions will be to access Patient Identifiable Data.
Measures for the protection of data during transmission. All emails are only ever sent to a validated email address, for things like password resets.
Measures for the protection of data during storage. All data is encrypted at rest using industry standard practices.
Measures for ensuring physical security of locations at which Personal Data are Processed. Once the patient level data is within the AWS environment it is only accessible by authorised personnel.
Measures for ensuring events logging. All scripts running on the data write to Data Logs for tracking of state and failures.
Measures for allowing data portability and ensuring erasure. All data is partitioned by practice in order to ensure that when a controller requests removal of their data it can be removed in its entirety. Ardens will process all personal data provided by the Controller for the purposes as detailed in our Terms of Supply and Use. This will include data under any opt-out scheme as the Product is used for direct patient care.
Ardens Clinical
2.1.
STARTER PACKAGE
Ardens Starter is a clinical decision support tool that provides clinical and data quality resources for primary care in England.
The service allows users to access:
Consultation templates
Care plans
Diaries
Scores
Screening templates
Diagnostic and referral criteria
Procedure templates
Consent forms
Formularies (S1 only)
Drug monitoring templates
QOF and National Contract directed enhanced services (DES) resources
The service is based on national contract guidance and best practice, and aims to help users save time, maximise income, and improve clinical safety.
This service is compatible with EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne clinical systems in England.
2.2.
PLUS PACKAGE
Ardens Plus is a clinical decision support tool that provides clinical and data quality resources for primary care in England. The service is based on national guidance and best practice, and aims to help users save time, maximise income, and improve clinical safety.
In addition to everything in Ardens Starter:
Ardens Plus package includes a module to manage all the locally commissioned services (enhanced services) requirements that includes templates and reports to ensure all the clinicians are recording the correct data for payment.
The service also supports end of life prescribing and drug charts for SystmOne users, which simplifies the process of prescribing and printing medications for palliative care patients.
This service is compatible with EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne clinical systems in England.
2.3.
PLUS PACKAGE
Ardens Pro is a clinical decision support tool that provides clinical and data quality resources for primary care in England, with full localisation for maximum value. In addition to everything in Ardens Plus:
Ardens Pro package provides a module with localised referral forms including all Fast Track Suspected Cancer referral forms. This helps to standardise and improve the referral process and provides cost savings and clinical safety.
The service also allows users to access local pathways that are integrated and maintained by Ardens.
For SystmOne users, the service also includes localisation of selected formularies for ICBs, subject to the Ardens Clinical Governance process.
This service is compatible with EMIS Web and TPP SystmOne clinical systems in England.
Services Specification
Support
1.1.
SERVICE DESKS
Ardens has three service desks. The hours of operation are Monday to Friday 08:00 to 17:00. For calls outside of these hours the phone lines are diverted to voice mail. All three support desks are managed by a Team Leader who is responsible for ensuring the service desk is sufficiently manned during working hours. Support queries are triaged by type of query and urgency, which are then escalated to the relevant support channels based upon this triage process.
1.2.
SUPPORT KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Support Desk KPIs
Action and Timeline
Support request
Response within 3 working days of receipt
Escalation requests
Acknowledged within 4 hrs of receipt
Detailed response within 20 working days of receipt
1.3.
DEVELOPMENT REQUESTS
Development Request KPIs
Action and Timeline
Ardens Pro – Referral Forms Requests
Acknowledged with 3 working days of receipt
Published within 20 working days of receipt, or within 5 working days if urgent suspected cancer referral form.
Incidents
Ardens has a standardised approach to incident management and aims to learning from incidents as an integral part of the Organisation’s culture. Incidents are graded according to severity and are managed according to Key Performance indicators.
2.1.
INCIDENT KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Severity
Action
1
1. The incident will be logged as a High Severity Service Incident (HSSI) and will be reported to the NHS Service Bridge as soon as reasonably practicable according to industry standards.
2
1. The incident will be logged as a High Severity Service Incident (HSSI) and be reported to the NHS Service Bridge as soon as reasonably practicable according to industry standards.
3
The incident should be notified or acknowledged within 4hrs of occurrence.
The ICB to be informed within 24hrs
Resolved within 2 working days of the occurrence.
4
Incident should be notified or acknowledged within 4hrs of occurrence.
Resolved within 2 working days of the occurrence.
