CHN dives into Data and ICSs
Article
On 20th September CHN members gathered at Amazon’s head office in London to talk about how ICSs will capture the benefits of data for their populations and patients.
Our excellent speakers were:
Jan Thomas, CEO of NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Andy Hardy, CEO of University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire
Dr Rupert Dunbar Rees, Co-Founder and CEO of Outcomes Based Healthcare
Kira Levy, Head of Healthcare UK, Amazon Web Services.
The main points from the conversation were:
- there is considerable scope to use data to improve population health, reduce inequalities in health, and improve quality and productivity of care delivery.
- data can be used to predict future patterns of demand, to identify communities for outreach work, to tackle wider determinants of health and target resources .
- data can increasingly be used to look at clinical outcomes over a whole care pathway, linking longitudinal data sets across providers and clinical conditions. There is already work underway at NHSE to identify outcome metrics which can be used to more meaningfully identify optimal care pathways rather than focusing on individual process metrics / individual disease area metrics
- other examples of data use included quantifying opportunities for improved throughput / productivity and actively sharing data amongst senior clinicians e.g. cases per theatre session by consultant – key to success is the CEO setting the tone and taking an active interest in data and using it to manage performance
- across all these areas, similar challenges were identified. These were:
a) use and sophistication of analysis of data varies by geography
b) the various ‘actors’ /organisations in the system don’t have access to the same data sets making joint planning difficult
c) the need to be able to analyse data in more meaningful ways;
d) the need to bring together data from disparate data sources to build a more holistic picture/a single EHR; and
e) the need for analysts who can translate data into information, and information into insight
Many thanks to Amazon Web Services for hosting us, to our speakers for sharing their perspectives and to all the members who participated in the discussion.