Data Skills
The ability to generate, read, appraise, analyse and use and present data responsibly to aid operations, evaluation and decision-making
What are the sub-capabilities?
- Data wrangling (cleaning, editing, linking)
- Data and domain expertise
- Analysis (problem posing and solving)
- Communicating with data
What are the core questions?
- How do organisations and individuals understand and articulate their own data generation practices?
- How do organisations and individuals distinguish the difference between organisational data, and externally generated research evidence?
- How are informal or ‘everyday’ data practices recognised by individuals and organisations?
- How are roles and responsibility for the use of data allocated within the organisation?
What do data skills look like in practice?
CASE STUDY 01
During a meeting of the board, steering group and executive of Sexual Health Organisation (SHO), the leadership team discuss the importance of using data to understand the needs of their community, as well as to highlight service trends. Available data sets include epidemiological data from surveillance systems, organisational data from patient intake forms, website traffic and social media posts, and publicly available data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
However, the leaders are concerned that this data is not well accessed or understood across the whole organisation, including the clinical and health promotion teams. The leadership team use the Digital and Data Models and Checklist to find out whether adequate data training and resources have been allocated to the current workforce. This also helps them to identify where future funds should be directed to support ongoing professional data skills development.
I know that most of my [health promotion outreach staff] won’t have any idea what I’m talking about [re: data collection] but I think it would really add a lot of quality to what we do if they did […] wouldn’t it be great if you could say confidently, “This is how [we] use their data, this is how [we] store it, this is the privacy policy, this is how we address confidentiality.
– (Expert interviews, Senior health promotion manager, DDCSRH)
CASE STUDY 02
Alex, a General Practitioner, has a new female patient in her late 30s seeking a comprehensive sexual health screening.
The patient, Sophie, is married but non-monogamous, and frequently attends swinger’s parties. She is asymptomatic, but is requesting additional testing as well as a standard screening – including pharyngeal and anorectal swabs. Relevant STI management guidelines suggest that because Sophie has multiple sexual partners and engage in anal sex, she is eligible for additional testing.
However, when Alex tries to process the cost of testing, the Medicare billing system flags that Sophie has already received a full screening and follow up in the past 12 months. This means that Alex cannot bulk-bill these additional tests.
To work around this barrier, Alex indicates on the Medicare system that Sophie was symptomatic. This ‘cheat’ means the tests can be processed through Medicare. Alex is concerned that the current ‘priority population’ categories are not fit for purpose.
I feel like the idea of continuity of care being attached to really comprehensive medical records and data collection, it’s not a fantasy, but I think it’s kind of held up as this sort of goal and ideal within healthcare that that maybe is just not all that common in terms of how people actually access primary care services. So, I think I definitely see a kind of tension between those sorts of strategies like going to different providers and using different services and that data collection is kind of scattered by all of those practices, I think, speaks to much broader problems about healthcare.
– (Policy Manager)
FAQs
What are everyday data practices?
What is data expertise?
Data expertise includes possessing the specialised skills and approaches needed to collect and use data. The kinds of data expertise you might need will depend upon the context of your work and the kind of data that you and your organisation have access to.
For example, you might be using epidemiological data to inform your health promotion messaging. Here, the expertise lies in data analysis (or making sense of the data) and thinking about how to translate this into meaningful communications for your target population.
Use the Data Capabilities Model to help you think about the kinds of data expertise you or your organisation needs.
Where can I get more training in data skills?
The Digital Health Hub is a source of digital health education, training and resources compiled by the Australasian Digital Health Institute on behalf of the Australian Digital Health Agency.
You can find a directory of short courses, university courses, toolkits, frameworks, and guidelines here: https://digitalhealthworkforce.org.au/education-and-resources/
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