We help healthcare organisations to build and maintain successful and sustainable business.

The World Bank wanted to stimulate debate around public-private interactions in Sub-Saharan African healthcare systems, to generate policy reform and attention, ultimately seeking to boost healthcare investment levels and efficacy in the region. We prepared data visualisation and comparisons for report country pages and liaised with journalists at The Economist to help to make the report more accessible to policymakers and the general public. The final product was a series of externally facing co-branded research and white papers, created to facilitate thought leadership and debate.

BUPA recognised clinically unwarranted variation in the number of claims around knee arthroscopy procedures among its provider network. It needed to manage the variation in practice in a way that was clinically robust. We examined the evidence on effectiveness of the procedure in different patient groups. We then constructed a robust analysis, stratified by patient group and specific clinical criteria. From this, the client designed pre-authorisation processes and tools, and developed patient communications to assist with shared decision-making and informed choices. This has helped BUPA to standardise care and optimise value by eliminating clinically inappropriate claims. The broader effect is that the providers now know that the payer is performance managing from a clinical perspective, resulting in fewer claims and clinically appropriate use of the technique.

Novo Nordisk asked The Economist Intelligence Unit to calculate the economic cost of diabetes worldwide. The client wanted us to quantify the economic burden of disease in specific emerging and developed countries in order to fully understand the scale of the problem. Our in-house team of country analysts and skilled macroeconomists developed methodologically solid estimates and forecasts across a variety of markets. We developed a model estimating direct healthcare and non-healthcare related costs, as well as the impact of the illness on economic productivity. The results were incorporated in a white paper outlining the major challenges and opportunities in addressing the problem. This was released on the web for public consumption, and benefited from The Economist Intelligence Unit’s editorial trademark.

Our client wanted to evaluate the cost of providing vaccines to Sub-Saharan African countries. They also wanted to map the findings to the predicted domestic government contributions to financing the cost of these vaccines and to forecast the cost-funding gap from 2009-20. We leveraged our Africa team’s country economic and forecasting expertise to produce country-specific healthcare budget forecasts. Our in-house modelling expertise, partnered with key academic institutions, enabled us to prepare vaccine cost forecasts. Finally, we drew upon our data visualisation skill to house the data in a user-friendly spreadsheet model with country-specific drop-down menus and tabs showing different data aspects, which enabled the client to use the output for fundraising and planning purposes..