4 - Using data and intelligence

Summary

Aim

The practical advice begins in this chapter, with tools and techniques for identifying local needs – including population health assessment and mapping current provision – and then how to use data and intelligence to inform the commissioning approach. Analysis of data and how to present intelligence are briefly examined.

Understanding population health

Population health

Population health is an approach that aims to improve health and wellbeing outcomes, and reduce avoidable health inequalities. Population health management is a way of working to help health and care agencies understand current health and care needs and predict what local people will need in the future. This supports commissioning approaches that are tailored to better care and support for individuals, create joined- up and sustainable health and care services and make better use of public resources. In summary, population health is about understanding local populations in order to better design services to meet their needs.

Population health analysis uses many different types and sources of information to better understand what factors are affecting health and wellbeing in population groups. Local health and care services can then design and offer models of care and support which will improve health and wellbeing for the local population now as well as for the future. As each population is different, this must be done locally to fully understand specific needs.

To be clear, this is not looking at wide population needs and then clumsily commissioning a catch- all solution, as in ‘diabetes admission rates are generally high, so let's commission more diabetes nurses across the whole area’. It is more nuanced and specific than that. For example, diabetes admission rates are higher in South Asian communities (Shah and Kanaya, 2014) and in those with unskilled jobs and those who are unemployed (Kilvert, 2023). New models of working could target these groups in ways that will be effective for them. For example, partnerships involving health services, public health, and communities could offer cooking classes, diet and nutrition advice in workplaces, and free gym memberships for specific groups. It is about using the data to be more proactive and targeted when tackling local issues, to meet people's needs in the best way.