About

A major metropolitan healthcare provider delivers hospital and community-based services to a diverse and rapidly growing population of nearly one million people. With more than 12,000 staff across multiple hospitals and health centres, the organisation provides hundreds of thousands of occasions of care annually across acute, subacute, aged care, and community settings.

Challenge

Following the merger of two regional health services, the organisation inherited multiple disconnected data systems and inconsistent reporting processes. Executive management and department heads struggled to access reliable data for decision-making and compliance reporting.

Key challenges included:

  • Heavy reliance on Excel spreadsheets for operational and performance reporting.

  • Inconsistent data across departments, leading to conflicting figures and confusion.

  • Lack of a centralised data repository or defined business rules for KPI calculation.

  • Limited ability to monitor activity, financial performance, and workforce metrics in real time.

The leadership team recognised the need to establish a data warehouse and Power BI reporting environment to create a single source of truth and foster a culture of data-driven management.

Solution

AGER BI was engaged to design and implement an enterprise-grade data warehouse and Power BI reporting solution, tailored to the organisation’s healthcare environment.

Data Warehouse Development

AGER BI worked closely with the ICT team to identify data sources across clinical, financial, and HR systems. An on-premises SQL Server data warehouse was chosen to align with existing infrastructure and security policies.

Using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), data from multiple source systems was extracted, cleansed, and loaded daily into a centralised warehouse. This provided a consistent, governed foundation for reporting. Data quality checks were built into the ETL process to detect and resolve data inconsistencies, improving overall accuracy and reliability.

Business Rules and Governance

Working with the executive committee, AGER BI helped define the core business rules and KPI logic used across all reports. These were codified directly within SQL views, ensuring all departments operated from the same definitions and metrics. This approach established a clear single source of truth for performance reporting.

Power BI Implementation

Once the warehouse was complete, AGER BI deployed a suite of Power BI dashboards and accelerator healthcare reports to deliver insights across key operational areas.

These included:

  • Patient Activity & Flow

  • Elective Surgery & Outpatient Waiting Lists

  • Theatres & Workforce Rostering

  • Finance and Resource Utilisation

  • Community & Aged Care Services

Power BI gateways were implemented to enable secure cloud-based access to on-premises data, allowing executives and managers to view reports anywhere, on any device.

Super users were trained in how to interpret, filter, and expand reports, supporting long-term analytics capability within the organisation.

Benefits

The organisation now benefits from a robust data warehouse and Power BI reporting ecosystem that supports accurate, timely, and consistent decision-making across all service areas.

Key outcomes include:

  • Single source of truth: All metrics are governed, standardised, and reconciled across departments.

  • Improved data quality: Automated ETL processes and validation checks ensure clean, reliable data every day.

  • Faster insights: Executives can monitor patient activity, resource utilisation, and performance indicators in real time.

  • Operational efficiency: Reporting cycles that once took weeks are now delivered in minutes.

  • Rapid delivery: The complete data warehouse and reporting solution was implemented within 7 months, under budget.

By modernising its data infrastructure, the organisation has moved from fragmented, spreadsheet-based reporting to a world-class analytics capability, empowering leaders to make data-driven decisions that improve operational efficiency, patient outcomes, and financial governance.