Data for Recovery

COVID-19 has created an insatiable thirst for data with an endless stream of measures that must be reported upon daily and in some areas have been created on a real time basis.  Alamac are proud to have been part of this – it has had a clear purpose.  At a national level it has driven responses around bed capacity, ventilators and PPE.  At a local level it has created the necessary Gold, Silver and Bronze Command responses.  It has informed lockdown strategy and the mantra to ‘protect the NHS’ has been successfully achieved.

But what is the future beyond the daily Sit-Rep?

As we move to restore services we must embrace the use of data in a different way.  Never has the management of patient flow in ED been more important – patients need to feel safe and they need to be assessed, treated and moved on as quickly as possible.  SAFER processes on wards come into their own in ensuring active patient management and flow, in maintaining quality standards and in optimising the use of capacity.   And for the disruptive transformation in areas such as outpatients the data will support our success.

Where data is owned and understood by front-line teams, analysed and presented in a simple and meaningful way it can help make decisions, focus efforts and agree changes that need to be made.

I shamelessly sing Alamac’s praises in this regard.  On a recent visit to our onsite team in North London I listened to the Ward Managers talking about how much value they got from using the data and how it would help them return to business as usual.  And I am delighted that we have now agreed how the Accreditation process can be rolled out across the whole Trust by the end of October using the Alamac Kitbags.

 

Our learning?

When good data drives good people, performance improves.