Accurate data has never been more important in the world of health

Financial pressure on cutting costs in the NHS, at the same as streamlining processes and improving efficiencies with digital technology will be the headache facing many chief executives in 2021. Jon Pickering of Tiger looks at how analytics will help leaders make critical decisions.

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.

As frontline staff continue to play a pivotal role in the Covid-19 recovery, NHS 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.

That’s because the NHS possesses a vast amount of it. From analysing patient infection cases and staffing levels to how many hospital beds are currently – and will be – available.

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

For many managers, UC&C might not mean anything 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.

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.

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 then it’s a sustainable investment that can help to push positive change forward.

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.

Overall, 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.