Written by Paul Scholey, VP of International Sales, Sisense
In this article, Paul Scholey, a leading expert from Sisense, discusses how the adoption of data and analytics can power a better healthcare system in the UK.
The UK government recognises the potential and sees the power of connected health care (technology-enabled care). The government believes it’s not a time to slow down but to build on the momentum unleashed by the pandemic. Its current strategy is primed with bold commitments, using data to deliver better treatment and results for patients, and better research and support for healthcare professionals.
But is it enough? As a world-leading centralised health provider, the NHS has one of the largest depositories of healthcare data at its disposal. Therefore, AI should be adding tremendous value for both patients and healthcare organisations. Yet in practice, the NHS is operating with multiple, outdated legacy systems — some of which are still paper based.
Cementing its inadequacies, a report from the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) reveals that the NHS is not progressing quickly enough with its transformation targets due to a lack of proper funding, outdated IT systems, and unclear messages surrounding its technology strategy.
By embracing data analytics, the UK healthcare system could better support the masses in this period of uncertainty, as well as position itself for future growth. Here’s a look at how.
Six key benefits of data analytics in health care:
- Predict risks sooner: By collecting volumes of data, healthcare organisations can identify common symptoms and causes of conditions and diseases, helping doctors spot risks and implement treatment sooner.
- Stronger decision making: Healthcare professionals can leverage big data to create unique and effective treatment strategies by exploring treatments that showed success in specific cases and connecting them to successful outcomes.
- Personalised care: Using big data analytics tools, hospitals and other healthcare centers can track patients that have repeated procedures or conditions and use predictive tools to create a more tailored and success-oriented plan for their treatment in the future.
- Service delivery improvements: Hospitals can use software to predict busier times and appropriately plan to meet demand by scheduling more staff and reducing wait times and bed shortages.
- Improved record-keeping: Storing medical records electronically, as opposed to on paper, improves efficiencies in workflow by reducing the time required to pull charts manually. Additionally, electronic medical records (EMR) improve access to comprehensive patient data, help to manage prescriptions, and provide remote access to patients’ charts, for instance.
- Cost savings: With data improving patient care and healthcare facilities’ efficiencies, treatment costs and other expenses can be minimised.
As an example, Dutch-based SaaS provider Gerimedica, a company that focuses on delivering the best software and services for healthcare professionals in the aged care sector. In the digital transformation era, it recognises that the best software empowers healthcare professionals to harness big data and make decisions based on data-driven insights.
Noticing that multidisciplinary electronic medical records (EMRs) were falling short of delivering insights that have a meaningful impact on the level of care patients receive, GeriMedica turned to Sisense for a solution.
With Sisense, customers are now fully empowered to deliver and improve patient-care paths based on actionable insights. “The power of Sisense is not only in the dashboards or the web app but also in notifications,” says Hamza Jap-Tjong, Head of Analytics at Gerimedica Inzicht.
“Health professionals now have access to alert dashboards that highlight the patients who are struggling or not making anticipated progress. They are able to connect the dots between clinical and operational data and focus their discussions on a handful of patients, which has really improved the way they give care.”
The future of healthcare is paved in business intelligence
Improved access to data insights impacts nearly everything in the world from making automobiles safer to helping grocery stores stock shelves more efficiently. And in health care, this data might just save lives.
As vast amounts of data are collected across EMRs, ERPs, billing systems, and more, healthcare organisations need powerful end-to-end business analytics to prepare and analyse their data. This will provide a comprehensive, 360-degree view, providing a whole host of benefits all the way from providers to patients.
About the Author
As Vice President of International Sales, Paul Scholey is responsible for growing the Sisense business in EMEA and APAC. He brings over 25 years’ of experience in the software industry, having previously worked in and led teams in consulting, pre-sales, and sales. Paul has a track record of growing early stage and midsize software companies, with specialisation in building sales teams focused on accountability and value-based selling. Most recently, he was SVP of International at BlueJeans by Verizon. Prior to that, Paul held a variety of leadership positions at Oracle, Teradata, Pentaho and Business Objects.
About Sisense
Sisense goes beyond traditional business intelligence by providing organisations with the ability to infuse analytics everywhere, embedded in both customer and employee applications and workflows. Sisense customers are breaking through the barriers of analytics adoption by going beyond the dashboard with Sisense Fusion – the highly customisable, AI-driven analytics cloud platform, that infuses intelligence at the right place and the right time, every time. More than 2,000 global companies rely on Sisense to innovate, disrupt markets and drive meaningful change in the world. Ranked as the No. 1 Business Intelligence company in terms of customer success, Sisense has also been named one of the Forbes’ Cloud 100, The World’s Best Cloud Companies, six years in a row. Visit us at www.sisense.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
