Dr Rachael Beswick1
1Queensland Health, Brisbane, Australia
“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion” W. Edwards Deming
Since its establishment in 2004, data has been an integral part of the Healthy Hearing program. From humble beginnings with floppy disks and excel spreadsheets, Healthy Hearing moved to an off-the shelf product in 2008, and to the fully customised data solution, QChild, in 2013. This presentation discusses the data journey the Healthy Hearing program has completed over the last 18 years including how data underpins every aspect of the program – from service planning, service reaction and future proofing. The use of data has been critical at several points in the program’s history, including implementation of a new hearing screening device, and more recently, to assess the impact of Covid-19. With more than 1,000,000 child records now contained within QChild, the Healthy Hearing team are using the data to predict patient outcomes, in data visualisation, and into machine learning. This presentation will conclude with lessons learnt and how they have been applied to other program areas, and future directions for data in Queensland.
Biography:
Dr Rachael Beswick, PhD, MBA has been the Director of Queensland’s newborn hearing screening program since 2012, is co-chair, Queensland Child and Youth Clinical Network and recently Director, Queensland Health Reform team. She has led several large-scale population-based research programs including >25 publications on service model evaluation, cost-effectiveness of service delivery, patient outcomes, and family-centered care, has obtained $1.5 million in grant funding, and presented at both national and international conferences. Dr Beswick is also currently leading the Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening sub-committee which is developing a national consensus statement for detection of hearing loss beyond the newborn period.