CRAB Clinical Informatics Limited (C-Ci) was launched by Stephen Mackenney in 2008 with the help of long-standing colleague Mr Graham Copeland. Mr. Copeland is the architect of the POSSUM surgical audit system, now a world-renowned methodology for assessing clinical performance against the expected outcome for the case-mix. C-Ci’s technology delivers state-of-the-art tools for predicting and monitoring clinical outcomes. It builds on nearly 30 years of Mr. Copeland’s research and practice and a dataset of over 14 million patient records. With over £1,000,000 invested in product development, C-Ci’s CRAB system for risk adjusted surgical outcome assessment is in use in a growing number of UK Hospital Trusts and the technology is now being rolled out in other healthcare areas.
Steve graduated in law from Cambridge University and qualified as a barrister with a specialist interest in medico-legal issues. He joined the Department of Health in 1994 and, over ten years, developed national health service policy in a variety of areas including health promotion, pharmacy, general medical services and finance. Steve has also spent time working internationally with the European Commission and the WHO European Regional Office, developing a specialist interest in clinical governance and the quality of the “patient experience”.
“CRAB is generating trusted data which we can use to flag up areas of concern. From there we are able to take action in a much more sophisticated way than we have in the past.”
“This is not about making data/surgeons/departments look good, but about being accurate so that performance can truly be assessed.”
“CRAB has provided data for the consultants to really understand their outcomes for patients in a user friendly way.”
"CRAB predictions have proved accurate in my primary external research validation of the system. I currently don’t know of any other electronic system in use that can deliver this kind of overall and detailed qualitative feedback to the department and the individual surgeon. It has been a great benefit for our clinic and helped develop our work on patient safety."
“CRAB can identify outcomes that are better than expected, as well as those that are worse, and thus can be used as an improvement tool as well as to assure clinicians and others of the standard of care being provided, and to measure productivity.”
CRAB is unique in calculating the risk for every patient as an individual, and tracking avoidable harm in an organisation, rather than making blunt assumptions based on national statistics.
CRAB provides full clinical case-mix adjustment, using 18 research-based clinical variables to calculate the specific risk of every patient.
At CRAB Clinical Informatics Limited (C-Ci) we develop strong relationships with our clients, providing the support and advice they need to:
In this way, common problems, such as incorrect procedure dates or attribution, or wrongly-coded complications (e.g. issues that were present on admission) are reduced. By using C-Ci systems our clients have been able to improve the quality of coding with direct clinical input.
Support is available around the clock via an online help forum. In addition, we will carry out an annual health check using the same methodology used by the Keogh Review of hospitals, to highlight any weaknesses and provide assistance with remediation planning.
As well as monthly reporting, C-Ci consultancy support is also available to help organisations understand and identify issues and their root cause. We then work with our clients on remedial action and help to monitor ongoing improvements.
