Ensuring impact from SCRIS

What they learned and gained

Through the range of audience engagement activities, for example the Frontiers sessions, surveys, and awareness raising events, the SCRIS developers have been able to understand and act on dashboard user needs.

Learning from each activity helped shape future events and engagements, for different audiences.

Through various communications and engagement activities, SCRIS audiences and users will understand that the dashboards can be used by health professionals to review and plan for better cancer services and care for patients.

Through news stories shared through various channels, audiences understand how SCRIS data is being used to support better cancer services on a national level.

In future activities, researchers, policy makers and third sector organisations will be able to understand how the data analyses held within SCRIS could be used in research.

Feedback from users stated that by using SCRIS, they:

• understand that SCRIS is a one-stop shop for cancer data
• have a better means of informing practice using routine data analyses
• understand the benefit of using robust national cancer information in a timely manner to inform continuous quality improvement to improve patient outcomes

Metrics that can be used to understand levels of user engagement with SCRIS include:

• An increase in the number of people being aware of the SCRIS dashboards
• An increase in the number of people understanding that SCRIS is the go-to place for cancer intelligence in Scotland
• An increase in individual SCRIS user numbers, or applications to become users
• An increase in numbers of requests to the SCRIS Analytical Service
• More use of cancer intelligence
• Volume and breadth of people using SCRIS – i.e. generating a culture of using SCRIS as a resource consistently

SCRIS dashboards users have a more efficient and user-friendly experience

PHS cancer statistics pages already provide a wide range of routine statistical analyses. Information can be viewed by geographical, socio-economic, and tumour type (for example, numbers of patients with specific tumour types by Health Boards). The SCRIS dashboards, however, are interactive and the analytical information can be customised by the user in real time to suit their needs.

Additionally, with appropriate secure user access, health professionals can view information about their patients in their Health Board.

Using SCRIS can increase efficiencies. The information is available in one location, and users can adapt how it is viewed to suit user preference and set up regular reports to answer their specific questions. It encourages the “collect once use often” mentality.

Creating a more user-friendly website about SCRIS and the SCRIS dashboards, with simple how-to videos and text, has given users and potential users a better user experience, even before they access the SCRIS dashboards. Thinking about user-led content to support your product is key.