Making sense of a sea of data: the Royal Derby Hospital bioinformatics training programme Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The rapid increase in the amount of electronic data available provides opportunities for health services to implement and evaluate interventions to improve care.

This project increased staff ability to analyse electronic data and ultimately drive change, building on a collaboration between RDH and the Division of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Nottingham.

The first component of the project was to deliver a statistical course to the bio-analysts of RDH and Derby Public Health. Over five weeks the course built up the confidence of the analysts to apply statistical methodologies to their work.

The second component involved four projects delivered by the bio-analysts, and supported by clinicians, statisticians and senior bio-analysts. The projects were:

• Polypharmacy in older people: does a hospital admission result in a reduction in the number of prescribed medications?
• Discharges from the Acute Medical Unit: does this differ between weekdays and weekends?
• Use of antithrombotic medications: are risk assessments done and is the medication prescribed when indicated?
• Parkinson’s and epilepsy medication: how often are these unavailable for admitted patients?

The projects have led to insights that will be used to develop tools to directly improve patient care, and data from the projects will be presented both locally and nationally.

The bio-analysts are now confident in carrying out simple statistical tests and determining if differences in the data occur randomly or not. They are also much more confident in communicating these issues to other health care professionals.

The statistical course will be used for teaching other bio-analysts, and an accompanying podcast is being developed.

Contact information

For more information about this project, please contact Mark Norwood, Director of Information Technology, Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.