Vivaldi Study: Big Data in UK Care Homes Aims to Improve Infections and Quality of Life

Overview

The Naked Scientists explore the Vivaldi study, a large scale effort to gather and analyze data from inside care homes to improve outcomes for residents and staff. Led by Laura Shawcross at University College London, the project aims to use data that is already collected in routine systems to avoid adding workload while enabling meaningful comparisons across the sector.

Key insights

• There is a significant data gap in care homes that hinders understanding and improvement of care.
• The project uses passive data collection from existing sources to minimize burden on staff.
• Dashboards for care providers and policymakers enable benchmarking and better decision making.
• There is potential to extend into vaccine trials and national policy guidance.
• Collaboration across academia, policymakers, and care providers is central to Vivaldi’s approach.

Introduction to a data driven care home initiative

The podcast examines the aging population in the UK and the care home sector, highlighting how the COVID 19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in data and practice. The Vivaldi study is introduced as a nationwide effort to change that by leveraging data inside care homes to improve resident outcomes and inform policy decisions. The project is led by Professor Laura Shawcross at University College London and aims to move care home research from isolated studies to a data informed, evidence based approach across the sector.

The Vivaldi initiative and outputs

Vivaldi is described as a large scale platform using routine data to understand what happens inside care homes. The team has onboarded around 700 care homes, a scale that is unprecedented for social care research and a key novelty of the project. The outputs are twofold: dashboards for care providers and policymakers, and the data infrastructure to support research that may include clinical trials within care homes. The dashboards will enable simple, meaningful comparisons, such as hospital admissions or infections between homes with similar profiles, and the data will be used to measure variation, for example antibiotic use and urinary tract infections. In the longer term, the project aspires to enable trials such as vaccine studies within care home populations, which would bring care home research in line with NHS style clinical trials.

Passive data collection and reducing workload

A central theme is to avoid overburdening care home staff. The team designed the study so data extraction happens from systems already in use, minimizing additional data collection tasks. There may be some future data collection requirements for more complex studies, but initial participation should not increase staff workload. Slav, a care home manager, emphasizes the current challenge of data fragmentation, with many programs and disparate systems that duplicate effort and hinder care delivery. Vivaldi’s approach seeks to consolidate and share data across services to improve infection control and other outcomes.

Live experiences from the care home sector

To ground the discussion, the podcast visits Adelaide House in Walton on Thames. Eric and Linda, residents at the home, share their experiences. Eric, aged 85, speaks about independence and the transition to care home life, while Linda discusses leaving familiar surroundings and the potential benefits of the study, including a sense of contributing to the future of care. Slav highlights the current information exchange challenges with hospitals and pharmacies, and the importance of timely, accurate information when residents move between care settings. The residents express a positive view of data collection when it is designed to help care quality and infection control, though Linda notes the need for additional help with digital tools like iPads.

Stakeholders and policy implications

The podcast features Zoe Fry and Mike Slater, who bring perspectives from social care and pharmacy. They emphasize the opportunity for data to transform evidence based practice in social care and stress that Vivaldi should be led by social care needs, with collaboration across academia, policy, and providers. Deborah Sturdy, chief nurse for adult social care in England, calls Vivaldi fundamental to building an evidence base for social care and discusses priorities such as measuring quality of experience in real time and identifying best practice across diverse settings. Laura Shawcross revisits the project’s long term aims, including economic sustainability and integration into the national data infrastructure to support surveillance, policy, and research. The discussion also touches on the challenge of parity between health and social care and the need to build a culture where research is embedded in social care practice.

Funding, sustainability and the future

Funding has supported the project since 2020, with calls for ongoing public funding to sustain and scale the initiative. The COVID inquiry has underscored the importance of data infrastructure in social care. Shawcross argues for a national data framework that enables real time understanding of care home dynamics and can inform prevention strategies, including norovirus control and antibiotic stewardship. The episode ends with an optimistic view of the potential for data to unify care across NHS and social care and to drive improved outcomes for residents and staff, while acknowledging the cultural shift required to normalise research within social care.

Conclusion

The Vivaldi study represents a pioneering step in applying large scale data to social care. By combining passive data collection with practical dashboards, a collaborative ecosystem, and a focus on actionable outcomes, the podcast argues that care homes could become a model for data driven improvements in health and social care policy.