Client success stories

The Victorian Department of Health engaged AGER BI to design, develop and enhance the HealthLinks Dashboard and supporting data collection solution, providing centralised analytics for a major chronic care programme focused on improving patient outcomes and reducing avoidable hospital utilisation.

The solution consolidated patient enrolment, admitted activity, emergency presentations, non-admitted activity and healthcare funding information into a governed Power BI environment.

AGER BI developed separate reporting experiences for Department users and participating health services, incorporating patient-level analysis, healthcare utilisation, WIES and funding measures, advanced calculations, automated data transformation and secure access controls.

The platform was progressively refined using direct feedback from participating health services, creating a practical healthcare analytics solution that supported both central programme oversight and local patient analysis.

The Victorian Department of Health is responsible for supporting the health and wellbeing of millions of Victorians through policy, programme delivery and partnerships across the public healthcare system.

As part of the HealthLinks programme, the Department required improved visibility of patients enrolled in chronic care initiatives and how those patients interacted with the broader hospital system.

AGER BI was engaged to deliver the HealthLinks Dashboard and Data Collection Tool project, establishing a centralised analytics environment capable of bringing together patient, healthcare activity and funding information across multiple Victorian health services.

The solution provided Department analysts with statewide programme visibility while also giving participating health services secure access to information relating to their own enrolled patients.

HealthLinks required a consistent analytical view of patients enrolled across multiple Victorian health services.

Relevant information was distributed across different Department healthcare datasets, with varying structures, reporting requirements and business rules. Programme teams needed to understand not only how many patients were enrolled, but how those patients subsequently used hospital services and consumed available funding.

Health services also needed direct access to the analytical platform so they could investigate their own patient cohorts and assess programme performance locally.

Key requirements included:

AGER BI designed, developed and progressively enhanced the HealthLinks analytics environment using Microsoft Power BI.

The engagement included both the HealthLinks Dashboard and supporting data collection capability, with separate Power BI reports developed for Department users and participating health services.

AGER BI combined multiple healthcare datasets into structured analytical models and developed the reporting, calculations and security required to provide both programme-level and patient-level analysis.

Key capabilities delivered included:

AGER BI designed the data integration layer to consolidate information from multiple departmental healthcare datasets, including the Admitted Episodes Dataset, Emergency Minimum Dataset and Non-Admitted Health Dataset.

Power Query and Power BI Dataflows were used to transform and standardise healthcare information into structures suitable for consistent reporting and analysis.

The underlying datasets represented different types of patient interaction with the healthcare system. AGER BI developed the required transformation and mapping logic to connect enrolled patients with subsequent admitted, emergency and non-admitted healthcare activity.

This established a consistent analytical foundation from which the Department could monitor both programme enrolment and actual healthcare utilisation.

A significant component of the solution was the ability to move beyond high-level programme measures and investigate individual patient activity.

AGER BI developed patient list and patient history functionality that enabled authorised users to search for individual Patient IDs and review associated hospital activity.

The reporting brought together patient admissions, emergency department presentations, enrolment history, healthcare utilisation, WIES utilisation, HealthLinks WIES measures and other patient-level programme activity within a single analytical experience.

Users could search directly for a Patient ID and sort patient records by relevant measures, allowing analysts and health services to identify both high and low healthcare utilisers.

This provided a detailed analytical layer beneath the broader HealthLinks programme dashboards.

AGER BI developed a structured semantic model to provide consistent calculations across the reporting environment.

Advanced DAX measures and business logic were developed to support patient eligibility and enrolment, patient exclusions, changes in enrolment status, enrolment duration, maximum enrolment periods, average length of stay, healthcare activity, funding utilisation, capitation utilisation, WIES measures, HealthLinks funding measures and National Weighted Activity Unit related analysis.

By centralising this analytical logic, the solution reduced the need to reproduce complex healthcare calculations across individual reports and provided a consistent interpretation of programme performance.

AGER BI developed interactive Power BI dashboards that allowed users to move between programme-level performance and detailed healthcare activity.

The reporting environment provided analysis of enrolled patient numbers and trends, patients becoming excluded or de-enrolled, hospital admissions and separations, emergency department utilisation, non-admitted activity, average length of stay, capitation and funding utilisation, WIES measures, patient history, patient-level filtering, diagnosis and cohort analysis, and broader healthcare utilisation trends.

Interactive filters, navigation and detailed reporting views allowed users to move from high-level programme indicators into the underlying patient and activity information when required.

The dashboards were progressively enhanced based on direct stakeholder feedback from participating health services.

For example, feedback from Barwon Health led to additional consideration of cohort-level analysis by principal diagnosis, allowing health services to assess programme outcomes for clinically relevant groups such as patients with congestive heart failure.

This iterative approach ensured the solution reflected how healthcare analysts and programme teams actually needed to use the information.

HealthLinks required reporting to be securely distributed beyond the Department to users working within participating health services.

AGER BI worked with the Department’s technology team to establish external access to the HealthLinks Power BI application and align users with appropriate row-level security.

Azure Active Directory security groups were established for participating organisations including Alfred Health, Austin Health, Barwon Health, Eastern Health, Melbourne Health, Monash Health, Northern Health, Peninsula Health, St Vincent’s Health and Western Health.

This enabled the Department to maintain a centralised Power BI application while controlling which healthcare information individual users and organisations could access.

The group-based security model also provided a more scalable approach than maintaining access for individual users separately.

The HealthLinks solution was developed as an iterative programme rather than a static reporting implementation.

Department stakeholders gathered feedback directly from participating health services, and AGER BI used this feedback to progressively refine the dashboards, calculations and data collection functionality.

Enhancements included improvements to patient searching and patient history, diagnosis-based cohort analysis, capitation and utilisation reporting, excluded patient analysis, enrolment status changes, maximum enrolment periods, patient and demographic measures, and data collection requirements.

This collaborative approach ensured the reporting environment evolved alongside operational requirements and supported both central Department users and individual health services.

The HealthLinks solution established a centralised analytical environment for monitoring chronic care patients, hospital activity and programme funding across participating Victorian health services.

Key outcomes and benefits included:

The resulting solution gave the Department and participating health services a stronger analytical foundation for understanding how enrolled patients interacted with the Victorian healthcare system.

By connecting programme enrolment, admitted activity, emergency utilisation and funding information, HealthLinks stakeholders were better able to evaluate healthcare utilisation and support evidence-based decisions aimed at improving chronic care management.

The Victorian Department of Health required more than the development of individual Power BI reports.

HealthLinks required a healthcare analytics environment capable of combining complex patient and activity datasets, implementing specialised healthcare and funding calculations, supporting patient-level investigation and securely distributing reporting across multiple independent health services.

AGER BI combined healthcare data expertise, advanced Power BI development, dimensional modelling and secure analytics architecture to deliver the solution from data transformation through to end-user reporting.

The project also demonstrated AGER BI’s ability to work directly with Department stakeholders and healthcare organisations, incorporate user feedback into the development cycle and solve practical challenges associated with distributing sensitive analytics to external organisations.

The resulting HealthLinks platform provided a scalable foundation for programme monitoring, patient utilisation analysis and evidence-based healthcare decision-making across the Victorian health system.