Barriers and facilitators of use of analytics for strategic health and care decision-making: a qualitative study of senior health and care leaders’ perspectives

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study investigated the barriers and facilitators that senior leaders’ experience when using knowledge generated from the analysis of administrative health or care records (‘analytics’) to inform strategic health and care decision-making.SettingOne London-based sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) in England, as it was on the cusp of forming an integrated care system (ICS).Participants20 senior leaders, including health and social care commissioners, public health leads and health providers. Participants were eligible for inclusion if they were a senior leader of a constituent organisation of the STP and involved in using analytics to make decisions for their own organisations or health and care systems.DesignSemi-structured interviews conducted between January 2020 and March 2020 and analysed using the framework method to generate common themes.ResultsOrganisational fragmentation hindered use of analytics by creating siloed data systems, barriers to data sharing and different organisational priorities. Where trusted and collaborative relationships existed between leaders and analysts, organisational barriers were circumvented and access to and support for analytics facilitated. Trusted and collaborative relationships between individual leaders of different organisations also aided cross-organisational priority setting, which was a key facilitator of strategic health and care decision-making and use of analytics. Data linked across health and care settings were viewed as an enabler of use of analytics for decision-making, while concerns around data quality often stopped analytics use as a part of decision-making, with participants relying more so on expert opinion or intuition.ConclusionsThe UK Governments’ 2021 White Paper set out aspirations for data to transform care. While necessary, policy changes to facilitate data sharing across organisations will be insufficient to realise this aim. Better integration of organisations with aligned priorities could support and sustain cross-organisational relationships between leaders and analysts, and leaders of different organisations, to facilitate use of analytics in decision-making.

Good Practice in the Implementation of Digital Social Care Records: A Rapid Scoping Review (Preprint)

“…The article selection process and reasons for exclusion are presented in Figure 1. As Table 1 shows, of the 29 studies, ten were carried out in the UK -seven in England [3,7,10,20,[47][48][49], two in Scotland [43,45], and the remaining study [50] included multiple UK countries. Five were undertaken in the United States [9,[14][15][16]18].…”

“…Studies in the UK were carried out in care homes (n=3) [43,45,47], health and social care organisations/providers (n=4) [3,7,20,48], multiple social care settings (n=1) [50], councils (n=1) [49], and a continuing health care team (n=1) [10]. Over one-third of studies from other countries were conducted in nursing homes/facilities (n=7) [6,8,9,14,15,17,18].…”

“…Four studies focused on interoperability [10,19,20,56]. Studies can be grouped into those which aimed to: (i) identify barriers and/or facilitators to the implementation of DSCRs and/or information exchange systems (n=9) [3,10,13,19,20,[47][48][49]52]; (ii) assess the proportion/prevalence of services using DSCRs and/or information exchange systems, and/or how these are being used (n=7) [14-18, 45, 55]; (iii) investigate how digital systems affect the work of care professionals or care providers (n=4) [7,11,50,53]; (iv) assess care professionals' perceptions about the use of digital systems (n=4) [6,8,51,54]; (v) map services' readiness/maturity and/or care professionals' capability to adopt DSCRs and/or information exchange systems (n=3) [9,12,42]; (vi) assess potential strategies to improving existing DSCRs or information exchange systems (n=1) [57]; and (vii) assess the impact of use of information communication technology (ICT) on health outcomes (n=1) [56].…”

Data Analytics to Support Policy Making for Noncommunicable Diseases: Scoping Review (Preprint)

“…Lack of advanced infrastructure, low interoperability levels among critical actors, and bureaucracy pose a barrier to the acceptance of new technologies that are frequently exacerbated by safety concerns. Other challenges are organizational fragmentation creating siloed data systems, difficulty in data sharing due to privacy and security issues and concerns around data quality [36]. Systemic and organizational issues exist as well due to the core characteristics of public health authorities as administrative bodies that lack regulatory frameworks and a data governance culture as a whole [38].…”

A mixed-methods process evaluation of an integrated care system's population health management system to reduce health inequalities in COVID-19 vaccination uptake

“…As a result of this, efforts have been focussed on how to share data and achieve data linkage, and not on how staff can use PHM. However, it has been recognised that staff usage is key (Ingram et al ., 2022; McShane and Kirkham, 2020). Secondly, the goal of reducing inequalities in health or health care appears to be absent from international models, definitions and theories about PHM.…”