Mind the gap: developing effective communications between decision makers and analysts in health and care Devon Partnership NHS Trust

As highlighted in the report Understanding analytical capability in health care, there is a lack of analytical representation and technical expertise at NHS board level, which can lead to analytical outputs not meeting the requirements of decision makers. In addition, analysts often don’t have the skills to effectively communicate the outputs of their findings to those who need to act on them.

This project looked to understand the key issues and gaps in communication and information flow between analysts and decision makers in health and care organisations, and to develop a framework to help reduce communication barriers.

A key lesson from the project work was that the communication shortcomings are much more associated with the social and human aspects of interaction, than failures in technology. The framework developed, therefore, is particularly focused on softer human interaction and emotional intelligence skills.

An extensive landscape report has been produced: an overview of the Trust’s informatics activities and system flow. A series of structured interviews were held to reveal the key issues in the use of analytics at the Trust. A visualisation tool was developed to help with understanding and decision making, and a summary report integrates the findings from the project.

Early indications are that the project has started realising some benefits: the landscape report has contributed to a stronger overview of the informatics system at the Trust; and the interviews provided insights that will be key in guiding strategy at the Trust.

The project team is now working with the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts to spread the learning from the project.

Contact information

For more information on this project, contact David Somerfield, Medical Director, CCIO and Consultant Psychiatrist, Devon Partnership NHS Trust.