Blogs

Globally, the number of people known to have contracted COVID-19 infections is rapidly approaching 2 million, and nearly one-third of the affected individuals are from the U.S. The situation is beyond grim, and regulatory bodies in the U.S. are acting quickly to contain the damage resulting from the spread of this novel virus.

In recent decades, the world has witnessed the rise of SARS, Zika virus, Swine flu, Ebola, and now COVID-19. Epidemics and pandemics are a rising threat. Countries have made infrastructure a priority to safeguard their people and systems from physical disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. But the methods they have used to fend off infectious diseases are not enough to ensure the safety of people and the availability of essential healthcare resources during pandemics.

A Pandemic That’s Ahead of Its Time

It has been almost a decade since the government passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The healthcare industry has learned a lot in this period of payment reforms and administrative changes. Yet, have we implemented the operational shifts needed for true value-based care? Whether or not there is a longing for the simpler times of fee-for-service medicine is debatable, one thing is for sure — value-based care is here to stay — and it’s likely to become more entrenched in the decade to come. 

Amazing, breathtaking, reformative, groundbreaking. No single adjective suffices to describe how 2019 changed US healthcare. With the end of the decade, we saw innumerable events happening — from massive health information technology mergers to new major government regulations. 

Healthcare data storage will be touching the zettabyte-scale in the coming years with increasing services and patients. Every year, a significant amount of data is generated from medication administration records, lab records, EHRs, wearable health devices, and various other sources.