QEII Halifax Infirmary Emergency Department is working with reduced space, which may lead to delays for those with less urgent concerns. Learn more here.
Starting Saturday, December 14, the entrance to the QEII Halifax Infirmary Emergency Department will change to 1840 Bell Road. Learn more.
Nicki Doyle digs into Nova Scotia Health’s data to help build a picture of where the organization is doing well, and where the system needs to improve. Colleague Fraser Mooney, senior communications advisor, described her as “our go-to person for all things numbers,” comparing her to the math-loving dragon Pythagoras in Sheree Fitch’s children’s book, Sleeping Dragons All Around.
Nicki has been a data analyst for almost 20 years, first working in academia and then the private sector before coming to work for Nova Scotia Health’s Performance & Analytics team in April 2017. “I didn’t know this type of job existed before I applied here,” said Nicki.
“My job is to support leadership in Western Zone in helping them understand what’s going on and how they’re doing from an operations and performance perspective,” Nicki shared. She also supports provincial initiatives as a member of the Performance & Analytics team and works closely with colleagues in Project Services, Clinical Transformation and IMIT.
Nicki said she can validate what leaders are sensing, with solid data; she offers an example. “Valley Regional Hospital emergency department (ED) is seeing more patients, and more high acuity patients, than any time previously. When I’m speaking with the manager of the Valley ED, I can say, ‘Yes, this is the busiest you’ve ever been. Look how well you’re doing, even with this volume.’”
Nicole Lukeman, director of Clinical Transformation for Western Zone, spoke about Nicki’s impact when it comes to supporting good decisions related to clinical transformation.
“Data is great. We are at a time in our healthcare organization and in the world, where we’ve never had access to so much data, but the context is important,” says Nicole. “How we put those pieces together is important. This is more than having someone who’s going to pull that data for you; it’s having someone like Nicki who’s going to synthesize it for you. So, it becomes more than a number, it’s deeply thinking about what that number means.”
Both Nicki and Nicole share the example of setting up urgent treatment centres (UTCs) in Western Zone. “UTCs were brand new,” said Nicki, who worked with leaders to determine which data would be most useful to collect and analyze, based on what they were trying to achieve. “We had never run this type of clinic before. There’s a tension between an evaluation plan that wants to know everything under the sun versus the number of hours that’s going to create for nursing and administrative staff to gather that information. If we tip the balance too far, we have to redo it. We want to understand what patients present with, where they’re coming from, and what kind of access they have to other models of care, but we need to collect that data efficiently.”
Nicole said Nicki is good at asking questions around the “Why?” of collecting data. “She asks, ‘What is it you’re really looking for?’ There are lots of different ways we evaluate. We can evaluate by counting things, but how do we understand the outcome to the patient? From the beginning, if we want to be able to measure certain outcomes and impacts, we need to be able to capture the right information. Nicki has a holistic understanding of the data in multiple systems and she’s able to ask the thoughtful questions around, ‘What does this actually mean?’”
Nicole sumed up what Nicki and her team offer to the Western Zone team, and to the organization. “We’re incredibly lucky to have Nicki. She’s available. She really cares about the patient, and she really wants to be able to support teams to do their best work.”