Identifying patient priorities - completed #ProBonoOR project with Bloodwise

Bloodwise is the UK's specialist blood cancer charity.

Bloodwise carried out a survey to more than a thousand patients with a view to understand their level of satisfaction throughout different stages of their blood cancer experience. This presented an opportunity to identify which stages were more important.

The survey was divided in different sections corresponding to different stages of the blood cancer experience like diagnosis, treatment, post- treatment ,etc

The analysis followed a two stage approach. For each section a statistical drivers of satisfaction analysis was carried out. Since most questions asked patients to rate areas of support we performed some exploratory analysis (looking at each area of support separately) to assess their impact driving patient satisfaction. Finally by means of regression trees the volunteer identified a hierarchy of importance and establish which areas of support are absolutely essential.

Moreover by means of decision trees the volunteer identified the best method of delivery for each area of support; the options were by a medical professional, on a written format such as a leaflet or through friend and family.


Further details of the project can be seen in the case study slide below.






Bloodwise commented: 'Understanding which areas of support are essential has allowed us to prioritise patient support initiatives.'


To find out more about Pro Bono O.R. please click here

Pro Bono O.R. video - Charities: get more from your data with Pro Bono O.R.

Operational Research (O.R.) is the science of better decision making and The Operational Research Society runs its Pro Bono O.R. scheme to match up analysts with charities and other third sector organisations to improve their operations - for free!

On a bright sunny morning in February a group of people gathered together in a function room at Southwark Cathedral to make a film to promote Pro Bono O.R.

Making such a film had been something I’d wanted to do for a little while and this was made possible by the arrival of a full-time marketing and communication manager at The OR Society.

Volunteers and third sector organisations who had taken part in the scheme would be invited to come and talk about their experiences of the scheme in an informal, script-free day full of cake, coffee and filming.

A venue was selected, a date picked and the requests sent out and I was overwhelmed with the positive responses, given the relatively short notice. The day started bright an early, setting up the room and equipment at 8am for our first interviewee from Diabetes UK to begin at 9am.  Throughout the day we had 12 interviewees: six representatives from The Childhood Trust, Marie Curie, Dachshund Breed Council, Disability Law Service and Bloodwise; and six volunteers who were able to attend, many of who had worked with the charities that were represented.

Representatives of organisations who received Pro Bono O.R. support talked about impact of the project, and the effect of the volunteer who worked on it. Volunteers talked about what it is like to work for a different kind of organisation, how they used their skills on the projects they worked on and the benefits to volunteering.

For me personally this was a great opportunity to meet with many of the organisations and volunteers whom I normally only have email and phone contact with.  It was fantastic to hear first-hand about the projects and the enthusiasm and positivity that all who involved got out of being involved with the scheme.

There was so much footage one film has now turned into two.  One is aimed at encouraging more organisations to take up the offer of Pro Bono O.R. and the other is to encourage more O.R. analysts to sign up as volunteers.

I am delighted with the outcome and you can now view the 'Organisations: get more from your data' video here.

Find out more at about the scheme here or tweet to Felicity McLeister at ‏@FMcLeister to get the conversation started.

Knowing your audience - completed #ProBonoOR project with Bloodwise

Bloodwise is the UK's specialist blood cancer charity. Bloodwise contacted Pro Bono O.R. to request support from an analyst who could help them to 'know their audience better'.

Bloodwise’s wealth of data presented an opportunity to improve their knowledge about their supporters; they were to keen to understand how many different groups of supporters they had and what makes these groups different from each other.

Details of the project can be seen in the case study slide below.

The volunteer commented about the project: 

'It was a very fulfilling experience, it gave me a chance to meet a nice bunch of people and contribute to a great cause. Moreover it allow me to experiment with different modelling techniques and it was great to see that the analytics outputs were well received. One important aspect is that the analysis identifies some quick wins which should allow Bloodwise to optimise their fundraising efforts. Bloodwise will also be able to re-use much of the R code for further analysis like an attitudinal segmentation.

To find out more about Pro Bono O.R. please click here