Graylog for National Health Services

Managing patient care in a digitally transformed era is increasingly difficult. National Health Services (NHS) trusts seek to provide the best patient care possible, but the need to share electronic healthcare data securely remains a challenge.

NHS trusts need to share data across disparate electronic systems, but the ability of these systems to communicate with one another while maintaining data security and privacy remains a struggle. In their January 2020 article, “Interoperability in NHS hospitals must be improved: the Care Quality Commission should be a key actor in this process,” the authors note that while interoperability is vitally important to reduce the administrative data gathering burden for clinicians and enable well-curated research datasets. Also, a recent independent survey on NHS interoperability indicated that 33% of respondent trusts could not electronically access outside patient data. 

Despite the public health benefits associated with interoperability, governance surrounding data-sharing requires the trusts to consider the management and use of linked data, particularly in preventing unauthorized access. Looking for a single source of guidance in managing patient data becomes increasingly difficult as data types increase along with governing bodies. For example, according to a 2020 research paper by the Royal Society, various trusts have distributed data governance research around data ethics, data privacy and anonymization, data-sharing and interoperability, data protection and security, and responsible innovation