What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme of 'How can we improve across system boundaries?​

Fragmented and incomplete data often fails to capture a holistic view of the person at the centre of healthcare processes, their goals, challenges and wishes.

We want to collate data, track progress of interventions and demonstrate value by having all value pillar measures together – personal (patient voice), allocative, societal and technical.

Currently, data is collected and stored in multiple systems, from paper notes to fully digitised systems. Data systems aren’t connected, making analysis very time consuming, if not impossible. Our team developed a data tracker to evaluate the progress and create prognosis for the projects we are commissioning, however we aren’t able to populate the tracker without access to all the different databases and systems.

We strongly believe data helps to see the bigger picture, evaluate the impact our projects have, assess productivity, identify opportunities for improvement, prognose future trends and identify initiatives which may need additional support to succeed.

What does your project aim to achieve?

The main objective is to increase data analytics capacity to:

• Connect the data from different sources and place them in one system
• Create a cohesive, reliable source of information
• Enable teams to make data-driven decisions.

This will directly impact on patients as the information collected will help drive clinical decisions about their care process. Having a clear link to demographic data also helps address health inequalities, allowing us to act where needed most first.

Initially the project will benefit patient’s living in Cardiff&Vale. Upon success of the project, we will share our methodology to spread&scale the good practice of robust data analytics, boosting capabilities and improving management practices across the UK. Being able to support successful projects, and abandoning those that aren’t successful (based on data), we will redirect and recirculate funds to other initiatives, therefore improving access to care in multiple areas and contributing to reduction in health inequalities. 

How will the project be delivered?

The project will be led by Value in Health team, whose main objective is to ensure that VBHC principles, such as sustainability, equality and providing value for all, are embedded into business-as-usual.

Our team consists of a programme manager, improvement manager, data analyst and finance business partner, who together have oversight of all the projects commissioned. We are positioned within the health board’s strategic programme with strong and direct operational links to influence actions by supporting and accelerating the development of projects that work, and mitigating risks of those where data point towards failures. Having support from the healthboard  executives allows us to escalate and manage risks in an efficient manner.

We seek to expand our data analyst capacity to enable measurement of impact for all the projects we support and supervise. The data analyst will work across all clinical specialties therefore eliminating the silos and disconnect across the organisation.

How is your project going to share learning?

Successful implementation of our data tracker methodology will allow us to share it with teams across Wales and all of the UK as a tool to evaluate projects and measure their impact in the long-term. As permanent members of the national Value in Health Leaders forum we will be able to share good examples of clinical and financial effectiveness both locally and nationally. Our links with NHS Executive, Digital Health&Care Wales and the Financial Delivery Unit will help spread the good practice further, with the potential of being rolled out outside of Wales in the future.

The data tracker will help deepen the understanding of VBHC principles among Q members across the UK, contributing to its implementation as a method of providing better outcomes for patients within the available budgets. We also plan to share the data tracker tool and methodology with VBHC communities and professionals outside of the UK.