We caught up with Nik Haliasos, acting CCIO and consultant neurosurgeon, whose team at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust team were joint winners of our inaugural Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Healthcare Data Analytics.
What do you think good data analytics in the health and care system looks like?
Good data analytics is anything that gives value to our business of delivering healthcare. It has to be able to give the desired message and allow us to add value to our clinicians and patients. Good data analytics needs to start with good data collected and validated.
How can the health and care system better utilise the data it has to improve care and services?
There is a disconnection from the bodies that set the targets and benchmarks to the actual providers of healthcare at the frontline. Data has to be used to set benchmarks from the bottom up not the opposite.
How have healthcare data analytics been deployed to respond to the pandemic, and what role did your team play in that?
Our project had significant repercussions relating to the pandemic as the accident & emergency triage model we have produced could be trained to respond to Covid-19 patient signals as far as their severity of presentation. Our data analytics team is looking ways to use the Covid-19 dataset to train the model for this new challenge.
How do you consider diversity and inclusion in your day to day role?
In our data analytics team we are fortunate to have 50% of staff women and minority groups. The most important consideration though, that should reflect all projects of this kind, is how to develop more 'democratic' and inclusive AI tools that do not penalise minority populations in their results.
What value does involving patients and the public add to your work?
Connecting the data science team with the patients brings an immediate 'goal' and intention as we can see how theoretical work can benefit the public. The other point relates to a sense of safety that what is developed will have the approval of the actual beneficiaries of our work.
This year is Florence Nightingale’s bicentenary – how has she inspired you?
The influence of Florence Nightingale as a figure has echoed through the continuous endeavours of our nurses and clinical teams striving to provide best care and even sacrifice themselves during the pandemic.
Read more about the 2020 winners of the Florence Nightingale Award.