Blogs

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2018 impressively pulled over 43,000 attendees to the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on the first day of their annual conference. Adding to the continued agenda of improving interoperability and the evolution of patient-centric care, AI and machine learning too dominated discussion and session topics.

Undoubtedly, the healthcare data is increasing at an unprecedented rate, but this change is diverse and complex. Healthcare providers, irrespective of their vast struggles and investments, are still not able to identify the true nature of their data. The first step in harnessing the true power of data requires us to think and firstly identify what we’re looking at- not the solutions but the questions first.

Healthcare is one of the largest sectors in the U.S. and has evolved in many ways, with healthcare data rising to become its deep-rooted member. With the quickly evolving technologies, this data will not be constrained by the boundaries of merely clinical and claims data. Even today, despite the evolved technical proficiency, the healthcare organizations are struggling against data irregularities, missing data, legacy systems, and whatnot. Imagine the chaos when these data boundaries will be broken in the future!

With an increased focus on Triple Aim, a healthcare overhaul is in process. An aggressive expansion of data is taking place, but the focus still lies majorly on integrating inpatient data. While inpatient data has served as the primary source for patient information, ambulatory visits make up for 41 out of 100 visits to the care facilities. Integrating the two facets is thus essential to get a better understanding of measures such as wellness and prevention, diagnosis, treatments among others.

In the rapidly changing healthcare space that we are in, the push for information transparency has taken the center stage along with the need to gain action-ready insights in a jiffy. More and more healthcare organizations are looking for data-driven ways to enhance patient-centric care and contain their expenditures. We are generating a lot more data in healthcare than ever before, but where does it go? What kind of system do we have to store the data that we bring together? Is the data safe? These questions make providers think twice before they invest their resources and time in any data center.

Imagine 1,000 people dying every single day.