Data & Health care organizations

More often than not, hospital data is not very well organized in a transparent, accessible way. I am experienced in connecting different sources of hospital information into a coherent message which clearly communicates the needs of a customer, for example a physician or patient. 

In the Gartner Analytic Ascendancy Model (see illustration below), four levels of data analytics are identified, each with differing levels of Value added (Y-axis) and Difficulty (X-axis). Not one level is more important than the other. It is of importance, however, to have a solid basis when developing data analytics in any organization: which is the 'descriptive analytics' level. Currently, hospitals are establishing this base, meaning they are working hard to get timely information that tells them about past processes, like number of patients visits, number of surgeries, length of stay per condition, etc.

I provide support in establishing this data-groundwork.

Example: PROM data - from extraction to visualization

Below is a partial screenshot of a project I worked for an oncology department: it involved the extraction, cleaning, analysis and visualization of PROM information. Do contact me if you are interested in learning more.

Data viz & Scientists

Preparing a scientific paper for publication involves numerous rounds of text editing. And yet, when it comes to the figures that communicate the actual results, the only requirement is often "to upload the figures as a .TIFF or .EPS file". Little attention is paid to the impact that clear visual communication of research results can have. Data visualization is not a skill that is commonly taught to scientists.

After my post-doc, I dedicated years to learning about the field of data visualization. It opened a whole new world to me. It also led to a fantastic project at the Dutch medical journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (NTvG, www.ntvg.nl), where I re-created the scientific visuals in the submitted manuscripts. 

I now create tailor-made data visualizations for scientists. To be published in scientific manuscripts, or used in conference presentations, or printed on posters. When needed, I can also assist 'upstream', at the analysis level, helping with distilling the message and providing a fresh look at the data set.