Data privacy and protection seem to have finally come to a head within Europe.

Not only has the recent data breaches within World Rugby shaken many sporting organisations, the added reality of the impending GDPR legislation has caused many teams to scramble and have a hard look at their current methods of storing and collecting athlete data.

From May 25th onwards storing, sharing, managing and analysing data using applications such as spreadsheets, documents, emails, text messages and file sharing systems may expose organisations to serious risk. The new regulation also allows for fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover – whichever is greater.

EVERY PROBLEM IS REALLY AN OPPORTUNITY IN DISGUISE.

AND GDPR IS NO EXCEPTION.

Although the journey towards compliance may be challenging GDPR, when done right, presents teams with new opportunities to centralise data, creating one powerful and objective view for staff. From this centralised source staff can determine which metrics are the most meaningful and effective in improving the performance and health of their athletes, and in turn leverage these data insights to empower the decision making process and ultimately optimise athlete performance.

THE VALUE OF DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS

Teams who choose to centralise their data into one system are more likely to experience:

Improvements in Communication: A holistic, shared view of athlete availability and wellbeing will ensure all staff are on the same page when it comes to treating and training athletes.

Improvements in Athlete Health and Performance: An increased understanding of the ideal player load to maximise performance capabilities and reduce the likelihood of injuries. By centralising and analysing historical records of athlete injuries, treatments and training, staff can improve treatment and training strategies to increase player availability and therefore enhance competitiveness.

Increased Knowledge: Using longitudinal trends for athlete loads, injuries and training responses can support staff in forming better long-term strategies for performance, injury reduction and recruitment.

Save Time: Put time into your athletes and not your spreadsheets. Athlete management system can support staff in quickly collecting and analysing the data; allowing them to put more of their time into training or treating the athletes.

BUT CAN IT BE ANY SYSTEM?

Many legacy systems only store data, they don’t make it actionable.

Kitman Labs iP: Intelligence Platform uses real time analytics that enable teams to not only store the data but also learn from the data and use it. Kitman Labs also uses the highest standards of data security and data protection procedures to help you manage your athletes and meet the GDPR privacy obligations.

For example, Kitman Labs’ iP: Intelligence Platform includes a next generation Electronic Medical Record allows medical staff to collect details on an athlete’s injury in less than 30 seconds and secure it safely in a database that is fully compliant with the new GDPR regulations. Using the EMR teams can review injury and treatment trends for athletes over days, weeks, months and years; from this objective data meaningful insights such as WHY injuries are occurring can be found.

Insights from the injury trends can be shared with Kitman Labs’ communication tools allowing all staff to align and improve decision making and planning on how to protect athletes. Thanks to GDPR teams now have an opportunity to look beyond compliance, and by leveraging systems like Kitman Labs, can gain a competitive advantage over others.

**This is information, not legal advice. We encourage you to seek legal counsel.**