How 'Big data' will drive future innovation

Giving the opening keynote speech at last year's Healthcare Estates conference, Mike Hobbs, managing director of Carillion Health, drew on his 25 years' experience to discuss how innovation can help drive the greater efficiency and productivity that the NHS is charged with delivering, in the process cutting costs at a time when the service faces the tightest economic pressures in its history. He argued that as we enter a new world of 'Big data', the availability of accurate, comprehensive data on which to base key decisions will be the major enabler for the design and construction of high quality healthcare facilities in the future. It will equally be key, he said, to their efficient, low-cost, and optimal utilisation to provide the higher 'productivity' the Government says is essential.