A new training programme will embed 15 PhD fellows inside health systems to turn routine data into tools that reduce waste, improve patient care, and cut carbon emissions. Health systems generate vast amounts of data—from hospital admissions to prescription records—but decision-makers rarely have the right information at the right time to act. This matters because health inequalities persist, staff burnout is high, and financial and environmental waste is enormous. The problem is not a lack of data but a lack of actionable intelligence: information that is timely, understandable, and usable by policymakers, managers, clinicians, and patients alike. If successful, HealthIntelAct will produce a cohort of professionals who can co-create performance intelligence with the people who need it. The tools they develop could help hospitals reduce unnecessary tests, commissioners target resources to underserved communities, and health systems track their environmental footprint alongside clinical outcomes. The impact would be felt in quieter parts of society too: in how procurement decisions are made, how governance boards interpret dashboards, and how sustainability targets are embedded into everyday care. This is not fundamental science. It is applied training-through-research, designed to bridge the gap between data and decision-making in real-world health systems.
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There is an urgent need to improve health and care systems in a way that health inequalities are reduced, health professionals are better protected, and financial & environmental waste are minimised. To do so, actionable health performance intelligence has to be available to and used by all relevant decision-makers in the system. CONSORTIUM: In this Industrial Doctorate, health and care system decision-makers (policymakers, purchasers, managers, health professionals, patients and citizens) join forces with scientific experts from a wide array of disciplines (e.g. data science, clinical science, systems science, planetary health, health economics, citizen science). AIM: By training a next generation of professionals that leverage existing data across society to co-create actionable performance intelligence with users, HealthIntelAct aims to empower decision-makers to strengthen health and care systems' positive impact on people, planet, and prosperity. WORKPLAN: Via training-through-research and co-creation with different sectors, 15 PhD fellows will develop new methods to measure health and care systems' people-centredness, environmental sustainability, and impact on prosperity. They will develop tools to improve the interpretation of health data and embedding of intelligence in governance, and develop strategies to apply intelligence in decision-making processes. Finally, they will develop instruments to evaluate the use of healthcare performance intelligence in practice. IMPACT: The actionable performance intelligence developed during the project has large potential to lead to improved health equity and access to care, improved worker satisfaction, and reduced financial and environmental waste in health and care systems. After HealthIntelAct, our fellows will be well positioned to pursue careers in academia (health services research, data science), government (health policy), healthcare (quality assurance), and commercial business (IT, data analysis).
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