The healing power of data storytelling
How we helped Fiona Woods improve patient recovery
For world leading burns specialist Professor Fiona Woods, ‘good enough’ is not enough. In her ultimate quest to achieve scarless healing, she continually strives to learn more. Which is why she approached us. She wanted to know if there was anything she could do to better support patients’ recovery after they left the burns unit.
She had the data. Our task was to uncover the story it had the power to tell.
Step one was to identify the three main questions that needed answering. By working with her and her team, we defined them as:
The skin’s capacity to heal,
The development and maintenance of scarring, and
Long term health issues the patient may experience after a burn.
Our eureka moment came quickly. Or so we thought. However, we had missed one key component – context. Data can reveal actionable insights - but only if you have the right context. Bringing together domain experts and data scientists is the only way to bring context to the data.
Once we added context, another data correlation that initially seemed insignificant, emerged as a compelling insight.
Who were patients going home to?
The data told us that if patients had support at home, there was a significantly higher chance of recovery. When they didn’t, the rate of recovery was greatly diminished and there was a higher likelihood of repeat injuries.
Fiona acted on this insight by starting programs and extra treatment targeting patients at risk of repeat injury, or with little to no support at home.
As a scientist, Fiona knows the power of data. As a pioneer, she’s never been afraid to disrupt the way things are done to find and create something better.