Cigma was established in 1985 as a management information system at the City General Hospital, Stoke on Trent, by a small group of clinical service managers, in conjunction with the Health Management Faculty at the University of Keele, using Amstrad PCW9512 computers.ย Cigma was an acronym for City General Management Advice system.
The objective was to develop an integrated information system to help manage clinical services, using the earliest commercially available stand alone PCs with word processing and database software.
Cigma was used to provide management performance reports to the hospital management board including security, persannel, key objectives, location-based activity, training & development, resource management and quality assurance reports.
It was one of the earliest NHS locality-based integrated information systems in the UK.
The design specifications were:
Creative security and people safety
Inspirational intelligence and priority setting
Generated locaility-based action plans
Motivational development planning
Appreciable progress reporting