Awareness, raising, a case study: The Stroke Assocation

Stroke Association

The Stroke Association are currently running an on-going awareness campaign called “Know Your Blood Pressure (KYBP).” Stroke Association volunteers attend various events such as football matches and take blood pressure data from the attendees. The KYBP events are organised by the public, rotary clubs as well as the Stroke Association themselves.

Purpose

High blood pressure is one of the major causes of strokes. In general, the public tend not to get their blood pressure checked unless they are experiencing some sort of health issue and at this point it is usually part of the protocol to help determine what the problem may be.

Through these events, the Stroke Association are able to take the blood pressure of the public for no particular reason aside from informing them of the consequences depending on their blood pressure reading. The individual will then be able to make certain life style choices, which will assist in lowering their blood pressure, resulting in a lower chance of suffering a stroke. The prevention certainly is better than the cure!

Design

DCC designed the KYBP form using specialist software that made the form fit for automated data capture. All forms contained certain business rules and validations, which would uphold the accuracy of the data and were barcoded giving each form its own type of unique identification. Validations were included for fields such as the “date” and the blood pressure reading. The form is an A5 no carbon copies (NCR) design. Volunteers of the Stroke Association used these pads at the events; one copy was handed to the person whose blood pressure was taken.

Processing

Fully completed KYBP forms were then scanned and verified to 100% accuracy by our team of highly-skilled verifiers. A further quality check solidified the accuracy.

Dynamic Interactive Dashboard

The data from the processed KYBP forms are then exported onto a dashboard that is powered by Google Maps. The purpose of the dashboard is to allow the Stroke Association to visualise on the map the differing levels of blood pressure throughout the UK. Colours are used to represent the different levels. A red dot to represent high blood pressure to a green dot representing the opposite, with everything else in between.

Aside from the visualisation, the dashboard also facilitates an interactive means of analysis. Using controls on the dashboard, the Stroke Association could narrow their search using factors such as geographical location, age, gender, and ethnicity and so on – there is an endless limit to the varying analyses that is permissible.

Concluding Points

Using these features, the Stroke Association gained insights that can be acted upon, labelled actionable insights at DCC. For example, by using the dashboard, the Stroke Association could target those areas with a red dot (high blood pressure) as part of their future awareness raising campaigns. Focusing on areas where work is required will make efficient use of their budget and resources as well as being beneficial to the public that are being targeted.

If you believe such a representation of your data would be beneficial to your organisation, please do not hesitate to contact us and get in touch today.