Face-to-face outpatient appointments require patients to take time off work, travel and organise childcare. This all has a cost to the economy. Earlier this year we sought to calculate the impact on productivity of outpatient appointments by looking at the time working people needed to take off work, and also the cost to the NHS in missed appointments. We tackle the issue in this month’s data briefing from the ZPB analytics unit. Here’s what we discovered: Key findings: 1. £

Thursday night saw the gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs, inventors and product developers at the 10 Digital Ladies in Healthtech event held at WeWork South Bank. ZPB’s CEO, Zoe Bedford, spoke at the event which looked at how the private sector, SMEs/ start-ups are working with public sector bodies such as the NHS to transform how we manage our health, and access services such as GPs and our personal records. For those that didn’t manage to make it here are our top 10 ti

ZPB is a big supporter of using and publishing of data to improve outcomes in the health service. But for some, more data means one step closer to Big Brother. In case you missed it, this article by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian makes the case for using and making data more easily available, and how it can have a transformative effect. Toynbee discusses an upcoming scheme where patient records will be streamed to the Health and Social Care Information Centre for use in medica

Information is Beautiful have published a compelling and interactive bubble graphic visualising data breaches from the last few years worldwide. The graphic shows interesting trends developing over the last two years, particularly an increase in social media websites being hacked. It is good to see that NHS are not included in those developing trends. View the World’s Biggest Data Breaches #Data #databreach #informationisbeautiful #ZPBAssociates

Have a look at Todd Park’s TEDMED talk about the vast stores of unused national health data and its virtually unlimited potential as a resource for new healthcare solutions. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/) #TEDMED #ZPB #nationalhealthdata #TEDtalk #ToddPark #ZPBAssociates #Data

The Guardian recently ran an article discussing inaccuracies in hospital recordings of patient deaths, estimating that one in four deaths are recorded incorrectly. When noting the cause of death for a patient, the further impact of the records is profound. The data provides a picture of health needs in the country and therefore aids key decisions related to healthcare spending and the appropriate allocation of resources. If the full scope of the cause of death is recorded, it

The Guardian ran a very interesting post on an ‘alternative medals table‘ – looking at the number of medals by population size, GDP and team size. We thought this was brilliant. Viewing data from several different angles, each providing different perspectives and large differences! Have a guess at who you think came top! For GDP it’s U-sainly predictable. #medals #OlympicData #ZPB #medalsdata #Olympic #Population #GDP #ZPBAssociates #Data #Teamsize

Photo Credit: Matt Richardson The Descriptive Camera provides a rethink on traditional photography. Instead of producing a photo, it describes what it sees. We loved the idea of interpreting something so differently – viewing data from a unique angle. It’s what we do every day. #ZPBltd #ZPB #thinkoutsidethebox #datainterpretation #ZPBAssociates #infographic #Data

This was the topic of a recent breakfast convened by the Cabinet Office, Reform and PA Consulting. Our Strategy Director Alex Kafetz was asked to attend to discuss the topic with an invited group of people which included Earl Howe. You can find out what was discussed here. #EarlHowe #NHS #ZPB #StrategyDirector #paconsulting #change #alexkafetz #ZPBAssociates #NHSChange #Data #AlexKafetzStrategyDirector

Here’s an interesting article relating to Patient Opinion – a website which allows users of the NHS to provide their opinion on the services they were provided, good or bad – where they interview Patrick Gillespie, who leads the Clinical Academic Group for Psychosis, who are using Patient Opinion to identify the ways in which they could improve local services. It’s a fascinating article showing how data can be used on the ground, by practitioners like Patrick. Data can be use

We are very pleased to announce ZPB is now collaborating with the Open Public Services Network (OPSN). OPSN is a new not-for-profit organisation based at the RSA. It seeks to provide independent assessment of the information designed to monitor and assess performance of government and public services. OPSN also works to improve the debate surrounding the quality and value of information available to the public about education, health and other key services. OPSN aims to devel

Given the introduction of the Government’s White Paper on adult social care we thought we would lay out some of the statistics. The social care system was founded in 1948. The average life expectancy then was 66 for men and 71 for women. The average life expectancy now is 78 for men and 82 for women. If trends continue, which some say is unlikely, children born today will have a life expectancy of over 100. It is predicted that by 2026, an additional 1.7 million adults

There is a very good article in this week’s BMJ describing where we are in terms of transparency in healthcare data. It cites some projects the ZPB team has been involved in including the 2011 Dr Foster Hospital Guide. We at ZPB think there is much more to do be done including the release of data which better explains success in cancer treatment and information about how well different artifical hip and knee joints last. We’d also like to see better use of patient experienc