How analytics can enable NHS leaders to make business-critical decisions

There is no question that the Covid-19 crisis has led to the NHS being relied upon more than ever before, to provide quality healthcare to UK patients throughout the pandemic.

And as frontline staff continue to play a pivotal role in the nationwide recovery, Trust leaders are expected to be on top of their game when it comes to making any all-important organisational-critical decisions – and that can only be achieved via accurate data. So how can managers achieve this with the help of analytics? Our COO Ben Nicklen discussed this topic. Here’s what he had to say…

The NHS possesses a vast amount of data. From analysing patient infection cases and staffing levels to how many hospital beds are currently – and will be – available, such top-line detail is available for people to access.

But these areas only provide a snapshot into the critical data that NHS leaders must be equipped to handle – and react swiftly to. And that’s where unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) data analytics comes in.

For many managers, UC&C might be nothing more than a ‘buzz phrase’ but it’s vital when trying to understand each individual facility on a more granular level. UC&C is, after all, the key to extracting intuitive detail which covers everything from how many phone calls have been taken, what times each department were the busiest, staffing shortages and over-serviced wards, the training of inexperienced staff, and how to tackle the reduction in patient waiting times.

Being able to understand instrumental unified comms traffic should enable leaders to react swiftly so they can both address a healthcare demand, and decrease bottlenecks, alongside identifying where additional support services – such as switchboard and contact centre staff – are required when hospitals become over-populated.

As well as providing streamlined operations for departments and a better patient experience, such intuitive data can help managers to redeploy unused channels which support peaks in demand and restructure networks to maximise UC&C technology investment. This builds a more complete picture, in real-time, to empower leadership and both alleviate employees’ workloads and support their wellbeing.

In addition, data analytics can help manage staff who might be working on their own and out in the field, by providing reports on whether processes are being adhered to or where they might be at risk. After all, these workers are expected to go into unsafe areas in the community for home visits and deserve the same level of care from their leaders as on-premises staff.

Overall, the NHS holds an unbelievable level of complex data and, from a UC&C point of view, if it can enable leaders to identify trends that can be addressed as soon as possible – before it’s too late – then it’s a sustainable investment that can help to push positive change forward.

Now is not the time for Trusts to feel as though they’re operating in the dark. Data is there to be unlocked and utilised to better inform managers and drive decision-making, all via meaningful insights. After all, this detail continues to play a critical role in the deployment of staff.

There is likely to be a high drive towards reducing costs in the NHS throughout 2021 – all of which can be achieved by streamlining processes and improving efficiency, with technology as an enabler.

Costs aside, the NHS will need to evolve its digital service offering to support the next and future generations of tech-native leaders, that want to have detail at their fingertips for an all-round better patient and employee experience.

Find out how Tiger Prism helped a NHS trust with a large scale UC&C upgrade here.