Health Foundation appoints new Head of Data Analytics

The Health Foundation has appointed Adam Steventon to the newly created post of Head of Data Analytics. In his new role, Adam will work to establish the Foundation as a source of expertise on analysis of healthcare and related data, specifically how such data can be used to improve the health of individuals and quality of care for patients. 

Adam will recruit and lead a new team in this area, which will analyse the main sources of health related data in the UK in order to understand how health and the quality of care is changing, as well as identifying areas that might be amenable to improvement.

Adam has a background in mathematical modelling and policy analysis.  He is currently a Harkness Fellow at Yale University Medical School in the US.   

Adam’s appointment comes at a time when the Foundation is beginning to focus on the role of informatics in helping to improve health and quality of health care. The Foundation will later this year be launching a £1.6m open call looking for research projects into this area.

The Health Foundation is currently going through a period of expansion, with the recent arrival of new economics and policy teams. 

Dr Jennifer Dixon, Chief Executive at the Health Foundation, comments: 'One of the unique assets of the NHS is its comprehensive longitudinal data collected on every patient, in many cases from cradle to grave. This fantastic source of information is significantly underexplored yet it could help to revolutionise our understanding of health as well as the quality of care for people in the UK. I am thrilled that so talented an individual as Adam is heading up the new Data Analytics team for the Foundation. The work of the team will help us explore new areas of information and provide unique insights to help improve health and quality of patient care in the longer-term.'

Adam comments: 'I'm delighted to be joining the Health Foundation. The NHS has tremendous data, and the Health Foundation is well positioned to work collaboratively with the health service and academic centres to unlock its potential. The new team will use advanced data analytics in the first instance to identify the most promising innovations in service delivery, and to monitor the effectiveness of these innovations over time and track their spread.'

Adam will join the Health Foundation at the end of August. 

Media contact

Mike Findlay, Media Manager
T: 020 7257 8047
E: mike.findlay@health.org.uk

Notes to editors

Adam Steventon has led analysis of a number of complex changes to health care for people with long-term conditions and the frail elderly, including the Whole Systems Demonstrator study of telehealth and telecare and the integrated care pilots. Prior to becoming a Harkness Fellow at Yale University, he was a senior analyst at the Nuffield Trust from 2008 to 2012 and a senior analyst at the Pensions Policy Institute from 2004 to 2008. He was also specialist adviser on pensioner poverty to the UK House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee. He trained in mathematics at the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.