“We bought Raedfast for use in capacity planning, in service redesign, and to support our contracting process. The system can handle huge volumes of data at amazing speed, even on a laptop computer, and the built-in audit trail lets us see how every output number is built up from the assumptions we enter. If we relied on spreadsheets we would not be able to build models so quickly or at such a detailed level.”
Designed and tested by experts
Raedfast is designed and developed by NHS planning consultants with more than 80 years’ experience of NHS capital and service planning.
It has been refined through more than 30 client projects.
Your entire organisation in a single model
Raedfast handles Activity, Workforce, Finance and Estates information — across Acute, Community, Primary Care and Social Services providers — in a single model, presented in one, straightforward pivot table:
A Raedfast model bringing together Activity, Financial and Workforce measures, across Acute, ED, Community and Primary Care provision.
Enter assumptions at any level
Raedfast lets you enter assumptions at any level of granularity, using all or any of the business dimensions of the model. You can broad-brush the straightforward areas, and fine-tune the sensitivities.
The system automatically pro-rates the impact of all assumptions to the lowest level, so that model output can be drilled seamlessly from top to bottom, regardless of the level at which assumptions were entered.
Raedfast thus has the breadth to encompass the whole organisation, but also the depth to explain the plan to operational managers and clinicians.
Layer your model steps
Raedfast automatically layers modelling assumptions, so that the impact of one model step feeds into all those which follow. So Raedfast automatically applies (for example) the impact of demand changes on new models of care, and of both on shifts to new provider locations.
Unpack every output number
Every number in Raedfast model output can be broken out into the model steps which have built it up — so much from model baseline, so much from each of various demand changes, so much from efficiency measures, so much from new models of care, and so on:
Waterfall chart, showing the change in Beds between Year 0 and Year 20, and the steps in the model through which this number is built up.
Compare multiple scenarios
Clip together model steps to build alternative Scenarios, and enable different possible futures to be compared.
Handle incomplete and poor-quality data
Data loaded from external systems can be supplemented by manually entered data, so that the model has a complete picture of the organisation. Manual data can be entered at an aggregate level, and pro-rated automatically to the base of the model.
Raedfast modelling functions can be applied to correct and complete input data. For example activity might be moved to up-to-date Treatment Function Codes, or missing primary care data might be approximated as an adjustment of outpatient data.
Work seamlessly with Excel
Raedfast integrates tightly with Excel for the creation of modelling assumptions.
And model output is delivered automatically and seamlessly to an Excel pivot table, so as you build your model you analyse the effect of each step in Excel.
Analyse with Excel, Power BI, Qlik, Tableau, Python, R, etc.
Raedfast uses an industry-standard SQL Server database to which all analytical tools connect.
So you can analyse model output using your analytical tool of choice.
Plan without brick walls
Raedfast uses a unique Add, Move, Multiply methodology.
The planner constructs the model as a series of steps. Each step Adds to (subtracts from) a cohort of patients; or Moves a cohort of patients; or Multiplies (divides) a measure by standard ratios to derive another measure. For example:
You might Add a given percentage to emergency admissions
You might Move paediatric surgery from one provider site to another
You might calculate the number of modelled consultant WTEs in ordinary elective wards by Multiplying the number of modelled beds by a given value
The planner decides what the steps are, how many steps there will be, and which cohorts of patients are affected by each.
Like Lego® but for planners, Raedfast lets you build sophisticated models from the repeated use of simple building blocks, making no assumptions about the plan you want to construct, and imposing no limits.