Month: July 2015

“I feel like I’m helping more people now than when I was a doctor”

We were extremely proud earlier this year when our CTO Nasrin was named in this year’s Management Today 35 Women Under 35.

Dual trained in both Computer Science and Medicine, we’ve always known Nasrin was remarkable, so it’s nice to see others agree with team OBH! In her interview for the piece, Nasrin said: “I’d seen, first hand, the inefficiencies in healthcare and wanted to try and fix them. Life’s short; I saw that working in A&E. You have to put money aside and do what makes you happy.”

Interestingly, 29% of the list this year are entrepreneurs, revealing just how much startups and smaller businesses are now influencing the wider industry.

Well done Nasrin!

The right data for the right research at the right time

How do you build public trust in data sharing schemes? Our CEO Rupert joined a panel of experts at the Sowerby eHealth Symposium in July to share ideas on the subject.

The conference, chaired by Professor the Lord Ara Darzi, was a great chance to highlight the benefits to patients from data sharing, and to meet up with others who have been working to join up information across the NHS for a thought provoking morning of data debate.

Primary Care Commissioning conference: you can’t commission for outcomes you can’t measure

In July, we spoke at three workshops organised by Primary Care Commissioning which focussed on developing outcomes based indicators, and ensuring that we are measuring services against the right things when we contract for outcomes.

Our CEO Rupert and COO Juliana led two discussions as part of the day – one on developing the right outcomes and the second on creating the right indicators.

What are the right outcomes?

We covered the importance of engaging with patients to understand what matters to them, as well as addressing the frequent myth that outcomes are too difficult to define. We think that defining useful, meaningful and measurable outcomes is possible once you identify groups of people with similar needs, otherwise known as segmenting your population. And those outcomes are remarkably consistent across similar groups of people in different localities.

Creating the right indicators

Identifying existing indicators or creating new ones to better demonstrate improved outcomes is crucial. We discussed the different types of indicators (both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’), as well as techniques to match outcomes to existing PROMS.

Get in touch to find out more about our approach to defining and measuring outcomes.

Commissioning for Health and Care Transformation Conference

In July 2015, Rupert spoke at the Commissioning for Health and Care Transformation Conference in Central London. His session was focussed on how we can move on from traditional approaches to contracting for processes and inputs of care, and make outcome-based commissioning ‘mainstream’,

In his session, Rupert shared his thoughts on:

  • How outcomes based commissioning fits within the vision set out in the Five Year Forward View
  • The various legal vehicles and mechanisms available to contract for outcomes
  • Ways to ensure the outcomes specifications used for commissioning are identifiable and measurable.