eHealth NSW Director of Data and Analytics, Lachlan Rudd, recently spoke to graduates within the Digital Stream of the inaugural NSW Government Graduate Program about what makes his work unique and rewarding.
Lachlan shared his passion for data and analytics, explaining how it's helping to make a real difference for patients across NSW.
“This was a great opportunity to provide graduates with a better understanding of the ways data and analytics can improve healthcare in real life situations,” he said.
"Our work can help save lives. Enhancing the efficiency of the health system helps improve people's health outcomes as they progress through the hospital system."
"The impact you can make is far more rewarding than other industries that are only hiring your skill set."
Lachlan has worked on many innovative digital programs at eHealth NSW.
One example is the Sepsis Risk Tool Dashboard which helps clinicians identify patients at risk of sepsis. The dashboard passes patient information through an algorithm trained on historic data from patients with sepsis to create a risk score. This leads to better detection of sepsis which can help save lives.
Meanwhile the creation of the NSW Health Enterprise Data Lake, a central repository of data from systems across NSW Health provides faster access to data and information to better inform clinical decision making.
"These are exciting examples of how data and analytics can solve complex problems in healthcare," Lachlan said.
“The graduates were really interested in the work we are doing at eHealth NSW and I’m looking forward to the potential opportunity of working alongside some of them in the future."
