St George’s Hospital uses Tableau to cut patient waiting times and optimise clinical care for millions in the UK
Hospital first began using Tableau in 2013
Entire organisation can now access data via single, centralised platform
240,000+ hits a month in Tableau from users self-serving their analytics needs
With over 9,000 dedicated staff caring for patients around the clock, St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London is one of the largest healthcare providers in the UK. In addition to acute hospital services, it delivers a wide variety of specialist care to patients from around the country, as well as a full range of community services to a population of 1.3 million people in southwest London.
St George’s implemented Tableau as part of the NHS’s ongoing digital transformation strategy, to deliver a better, more data driven approach to decision making for thousands of clinicians, nurses, admin and management staff every day. The result is higher quality, more efficient patient care, with staff able to self-serve many of their own analytics needs and keep hospital operations running smoothly around the clock.
Unifying data access across the organisation
Every year, data becomes more and more important to St George’s Hospital. As the NHS continues its journey towards digital transformation and paperless operations, the need for accurate, easily accessible digital patient records, reports, operational plans and more has never been higher.
“Data is now the lifeblood that runs throughout the organisation, feeding every part of it.” says Elizabeth White, CIO at St George’s. “Over time, the demand for information has become huge and with new tech comes new possibilities. AI, big data and visualisation are all having a significant impact on the way we operate day to day and the things we can achieve.”
Prior to Tableau, the hospital relied on a combination of spreadsheets and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) for its data analytics and reporting needs. While this approach was adequate for some aspects of operations, the siloed nature of reports made it hard to get key information out to everyone who needed it, and the reports themselves weren’t always easy to navigate or understand.
“We knew we needed tools that could help with data sharing, presentation, output and understanding,” explains Elizabeth. “We spent a lot of time and effort on the back-end, getting data into great shape, so the only thing missing was a flexible platform that we could use to bring data to the whole organisation, without any visual limitations.”
In 2013, St George’s IT team did a full appraisal of the available solutions, and quickly identified Tableau as the best fit for their needs.
“Tableau ticked a lot of boxes for us,” says Rob Simpson, Deputy Head of Information at St George’s. “Speed of development was a big thing, as was the flexibility to link to lots of different business sources and present them in a highly visual, easily digestible way. The ability to consolidate important information in one central location that’s accessible to all proved a significant step forward on our data journey.”
Data is now the lifeblood that runs throughout the organisation, feeding every part of it. Over time, the demand for information has become huge and with new tech comes new possibilities. AI, big data and visualisation are all having a significant impact on the way we operate day to day and the things we can achieve.
Creating a powerful self-service data culture amongst staff
Since implementation, Tableau usage has grown substantially throughout the hospital. There are now over 2,000 active unique users, consisting of clinicians, nurses, admin, management, and executive staff.
“A few years ago, most users wouldn’t know where to look for data so they would just come to central informatics team, which turned it into a bottleneck for productivity,” notes Preethi Satheyendra, Principal Information Analyst at St George’s Hospital. “Now they can easily find most of what they need directly in Tableau, saving time for everyone.”
The result is a flourishing self-service data culture throughout the organisation spanning both operational and clinical activities.
“Tableau currently receives more than 240,000 hits a month from users self-serving their own analytics needs,” adds Preethi. “The more our users see, the more they want too, meaning usage and engagement is growing steadily all the time.”
To cater for new users, regular drop in sessions are held, which also act as a forum for collaboration and exchanging ideas between existing users. Departments such as finance, HR, renal, procurement and pathology also have their own ‘Tableau Champions’, who look after specific departmental analytics and reporting needs.
Simplifying analytics with standardised dashboards
As usage of Tableau continues to grow, the informatics team has created a series of standardised dashboards and templates to help groups of users quickly find the information they need when they log into Tableau Server.
“A great example is our pharmacy dashboard, which gives the pharmacists everything they need to know in a quick glance,” says Preethi. “The dashboard contains the latest data on in/outpatient prescriptions, drugs ordered over time, by whom, and on which wards, as well as the turnaround time between a drug being ordered and it arriving at the pharmacy.”
Another example is the ‘Good Morning St George’s’ dashboard, which gives the executive management team key information about patient flow through the hospital, from the number of people in the waiting room, to the number of people who have been discharged in the last 24 hours.
“Having such easy access to this kind of information means the executives can make informed decisions at all times, rather than making educated guesses based on data that could be days or even weeks out of date,” adds Preethi.
Tableau ticked a lot of boxes for us. Speed of development was a big thing, as was the flexibility to link to lots of different business sources and present them in a highly visual, easily digestible way. The ability to consolidate important information in one central location that’s accessible to all proved a significant step forward on our data journey.
Aligning the whole organisation to meet future data goals
At the start of 2022, St George’s Hospital became part of a wider group with nearby Epson Hospital and St Helier Hospital, significantly expanding the scope of data sharing and reporting taking place between the sites.
“Naturally, the new way of working presented a number of data challenges that we’re still working through,” notes Elizabeth. “Fortunately, tools like Tableau are making things a lot easier than they could otherwise have been, both from a sharing and governance perspective. We’re also actively exploring how machine learning can help us to further streamline our analytics and reporting capabilities throughout the group going forward.”
“Ultimately, patient care is, and always will be, our number one priority,” concludes Rob. “Better data quality results in better patient journeys, and Tableau is playing a big role in helping us achieve that.”