Better PROMs Coffee Prep

Purpose

This is a mutual discovery conversation, not a job pitch.

What I want to learn:

  • How Better thinks about PROMs, especially in the UK.
  • Whether Better sees PROMs mainly as clinical workflow, or also as evidence, evaluation, and reporting infrastructure.
  • What customers are asking for around outcomes, benchmarking, quality frameworks, research, and reporting.
  • Whether Brian Murray is the right person to speak with about UK NHS, research, and policy-facing use cases.

What I want them to understand:

  • I am researcher-first, but practical and product-aware.
  • I work on mental health outcomes, EHR data, reproducible analytics, and research-ready clinical data infrastructure.
  • I like Better’s clinical product; I am just most useful around the evidence and data layer rather than day-to-day clinical workflow implementation.
  • I can help make PROMs data more reusable, trustworthy, and valuable for service evaluation, quality improvement, research, and policy.

Good outcome:

I leave with a clearer understanding of Better’s needs, and they leave with a simple, accurate view of where I could be useful.

Core Message

I am interested in the evidence layer around PROMs: making outcome data analysis-ready, governed, safely reportable in aggregate, and useful for service evaluation, quality frameworks, research, and policy. I like the clinical product because that is where data quality and trust start. My strongest contribution is helping that product generate credible evidence.

Shorter version:

I can help Better turn PROMs from data capture into evidence infrastructure.

Important nuance:

I do not mean “beyond care pathways” as in ignoring pathway-level care. I mean beyond only planning and managing individual patient pathways. I am very interested in how PROMs can support pathway-level quality frameworks, outcomes-based KPIs, benchmarking, outcomes-based commissioning or incentive models, and public reporting.

Why This Fits Better

Better already has the relevant platform language: PROMs, openEHR, FHIR, low-code clinical apps, dashboards, benchmarking, clinical pathways, and integration into care workflows.

The additional value I can help with is the evidence layer:

  • analysis-ready, governed PROMs data
  • reusable outcome definitions
  • data quality and completeness checks
  • pathway-level outcomes frameworks and KPIs
  • benchmarking and service evaluation
  • safe aggregate reporting
  • research collaborations and publications
  • policy-facing outputs for NHS and public-interest audiences

The product framing:

Research-readiness is a product capability. The same infrastructure that supports care can also support analysis-ready datasets, aggregate reporting, benchmarking, quality frameworks, and public-good outputs, if the governance and data model are designed intentionally.

Questions To Ask

  • How does Better currently think about PROMs in the UK market?
  • Are customers asking for benchmarking, aggregate reporting, service evaluation, research, or quality frameworks?
  • What are the main blockers to making PROMs data reusable across organisations: data model, consent, IG, customer permissions, standards, or data quality?
  • Are customers thinking about PROMs as part of outcomes-based KPIs, commissioning, incentive models, or public reporting?
  • What would need to be true for Better’s PROMs product to become a trusted evidence-generation platform, not only a data-capture tool?
  • Where would someone like me be most useful: PROMs data modelling, evidence strategy, quality frameworks, safe aggregate reporting, publications, grant-funded collaborations, or customer evidence generation?
  • Would Brian Murray be the right person to speak with about NHS partnerships, research use cases, and policy-facing evidence?

Concrete Ways I Could Help

  • Audit PROMs data quality and completeness across implementations.
  • Define reusable PROMs variables and outcome conventions.
  • Design PROMs-based quality and outcomes frameworks, for example depression pathway KPIs based on reliable improvement, recovery, deterioration, equity, and follow-up completeness.
  • Develop safe aggregate reporting and public dashboard concepts.
  • Help write research protocols, publications, and case studies using governed platform-derived data.
  • Build NHS and academic collaborations around PROMs and real-world evidence.
  • Advise on governance for research use, aggregate reporting, and public outputs.
  • Help Better tell a stronger evidence story to NHS Trusts, commissioners, researchers, and policy audiences.

Pass-On Message

Make it easy for them to pass me on internally. One sentence they should be able to repeat:

Milan is a senior Oxford researcher working on mental health outcomes, EHR data, and research-ready clinical data infrastructure; he could help Better turn PROMs into a stronger evidence-generation capability for UK customers, service evaluation, quality frameworks, and policy-facing aggregate reporting.

What they should not have to explain:

  • a long academic backstory
  • detailed OpenSAFELY mechanics
  • a vague interest in “doing research”
  • a request for access to Better’s data
  • a custom role that is hard to place

What Different Audiences Need To Hear

CEO:

This could strengthen Better’s differentiation: PROMs as evidence infrastructure for quality improvement, benchmarking, outcomes-based commissioning, research partnerships, and policy-facing insight.

UK product/sales lead:

NHS customers are under pressure to show outcomes, improve pathways, justify investment, support research, and report credible aggregate evidence. Better’s PROMs work can speak directly to that if the evidence layer is designed as part of the offer.

CTO:

The evidence layer should be a first-class part of the architecture: standard outcome definitions, clear metadata, versioned logic, reproducible analyses, and safe aggregate reporting that respects customer and data-controller boundaries.

Product manager:

PROMs customers do not only need forms and dashboards. They need confidence that the outcomes they collect can support decisions: individual care, pathway management, service evaluation, benchmarking, research, and external accountability.

How To Talk About OpenSAFELY

Use OpenSAFELY as evidence that I have worked on the hard version of this problem:

  • linked NHS data
  • sensitive patient data
  • information governance
  • reproducible analytics
  • data curation
  • reusable variables
  • documentation
  • researcher onboarding
  • service evaluation
  • policy-relevant outputs

Bridge to Better:

In OpenSAFELY Talking Therapies, the central problem was not just getting access to data. It was making complex, sensitive, longitudinal outcomes data usable by researchers and decision makers in a way that is trusted, reproducible, and scalable. That is the same strategic opportunity I see around PROMs.

Product-design version:

OpenSAFELY taught me that the research layer has to be designed into the infrastructure early. If you wait until after data are collected, you often discover that the outcome definitions, metadata, consent position, linkage model, and documentation are not strong enough for credible research or public reporting.

Wording To Use

  • “evidence layer”
  • “evidence-generation capability”
  • “analysis-ready, governed PROMs data”
  • “safe aggregate reporting”
  • “quality and outcomes frameworks”
  • “outcomes-based commissioning or incentive models”
  • “benchmarking and service evaluation”
  • “reusable outcome definitions”
  • “versioned and documented measures”
  • “customer and data-controller boundaries”
  • “trusted outputs for managers, researchers, and policy makers”
  • “research-readiness as a product capability”

Use carefully:

  • “secondary use”, because it can sound like an afterthought
  • “payment-for-performance”, because it can sound politically loaded
  • “public datasets”, because it can sound like releasing customer or patient data
  • “research”, unless tied to customer value, governance, evidence, or policy

Wording To Avoid

Avoid:

  • “I do not want to work on the clinical product.”
  • “I care more about data than clinicians.”
  • “I mostly want access to the data.”
  • “I want to publish data from the platform.”
  • “Better should open up its data.”
  • “The clinical workflow is just the front end.”
  • “This is mainly interesting for my research.”
  • “Once the data are collected, we can work out the research.”
  • “I can help you monetise patient data.”

Use instead:

I like the clinical product. My strongest contribution is probably the evidence and data layer around it.

I am interested in safe aggregate reporting and policy-facing outputs, with governance designed in from the start.

I see research-readiness as a product capability.

Ask For A UK Intro

Light, non-pushy wording:

I would really value speaking with Brian about the UK side. I am not trying to force a role conversation; I would like to understand whether Better sees a strategic opportunity around PROMs data for research, aggregate reporting, and policy evidence. If that is on the radar, I think I could be useful.

Closing Line

I see research-readiness and evidence generation as product features. They increase the value of the PROMs platform for clinicians, managers, researchers, policy makers, and patients.