Never has there been a greater focus on the value of good measurement and analytics in the healthcare profession than has been felt over the last year.

 

Indeed, speaking at the AMEC Virtual Global Summit on Measurement, Robert Hoge, Executive Director – Strategic Communications, Queensland Health, reveals just how important meaningful data has been to Queensland Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

That response required significant and ongoing insight to inform both the public health response and the communications that supported it. But as Robert explains, it was Queensland’s history of dealing with natural disasters that truly prepared them for the worst.

 

“Because we’re in the sub-tropics, Queensland experiences a lot of disasters,” says Robert. “We have regular cyclones, regular floods, regular bushfires and regular heavy storms.”

This meant that the state’s politicians and public servants already had a strong framework to deal with an ongoing emergency like COVID-19 – and the public were prepared to be responsive to communications about it.

 

Robert reveals his top lessons from the pandemic: First, insight should always inform policy. Secondly, the general public always wants to receive actionable advice. Thirdly, direct access to transparent information builds trust in the public. And finally: always stay connected with your decision makers.

Dr. Pallav Sharda, Strategy Leader, Early-stage technology projects, X – The Moonshot Factory (Part of Google), has his own lessons to tell about the use of analytics to solve real life problems in healthcare.

 

Lesson 1: It takes a lot to get data to a state where it can be analysed. More than half of the work is the aggregation and harmonisation of your data to prepare it for analysis.

 

Lesson 2: Analytics is fluid and dynamic, it never has a fixed shape, even when you think it does. Even though you’ve analysed a report, it might be necessary to change it.

 

Lesson 3: Analytics does not need to be complex. Sometimes simple analysis can have an outsized impact.

 

Lesson 4: Insights are not the end-goal. When presented with insights, end-users will want to take action. Always think about the ways that end users will be able to act on what they’ve learnt.

 

Pallav leaves us with one final takeaway: analytics can give you the answers. But what is the right question to ask?