Towards data-driven healthcare --5 major challenges

Towards Data-driven Healthcare -- 5 Major Challenges Efficient medical data entry and management is therefore vital for healthcare providers. Here we discuss major challenges faced by data driven healthcare

Any healthcare organization has to deal with a lot of important data and this data needs to be of excellent quality from the point of view of providing improved patient care. Efficient medical data entry and management is therefore vital for healthcare providers. Information regarding health should be properly managed so that it can be integrated into the treatment and care that physicians and other healthcare professionals provide to their patients. Hospitals and healthcare units have huge volumes of data and only with accurate data can good care be provided.

The available healthcare information has to be transformed into intelligent information so that informed decisions can be taken. According to analysts in the field, there are certain major challenges in the way of data-driven healthcare. ďƒ˜ The problem of unstructured data Healthcare entities always have huge volumes of data to handle. The data can be structured or unstructured. Structured data is easy to understand whereas unstructured data can be lengthy and hard to use for data analytics. Medical data should be interoperable and also analyzable when needed. Data is error prone and with the implementation of ICD- 10 codes, the rate of error has increased from 20 to 50 percent. The amount of unstructured data is growing rapidly due to lack of interoperable technology and tools, and the amount of data lost is also on the rise. Gartner Group has forecast that 80% of the data is unstructured and continuing to increase. The right technology can help address this issue. ďƒ˜ Lack of awareness regarding meaningful data Data should be meaningful and allow physicians to bring it to the patient level and help them use it to manage their acute and chronic conditions. The data available should enable physicians to precisely www.managedoutsource.com

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identify the health condition of the patient and plan the right treatment. Meaningful data may be hidden in physicians’ narrative notes, which cannot be accurately and completely captured by the EHR systems. Physicians must have the right data to ensure appropriate patient care.  Interoperability Medical record systems are not built with data exchange in mind, which becomes difficult during the analysis of medical records. In addition, abbreviations, misspellings and legacy data pose challenges.

Systems need to be designed for health data interoperability and useful for generating continuity of core documents or CDAs. A clearcut

acceptable

definition

of

interoperability

is

only

gradually

developing.  Billing and revenue Revenue and billing is another challenge in the healthcare sector. The current form of medical billing does not meaningfully represent the outcomes in a patient’s case. To ensure a data driven healthcare world focused on outcomes, new financial incentive models are necessary to reward providers. The need is for value-based care, and providers must be given the incentive to focus on getting patients back to work much earlier than they might at a healthcare facility.

According to a leading thought leader in data-driven healthcare, payment to physicians must be made on the basis of the outcomes the patient sees. Providers who successfully treat patients and get them back to good health sooner should be paid a bonus. This will act as an incentive for physicians to improve care and stay ahead of their competitors.

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ďƒ˜ Legacy system and its effects In a legacy system, patients’ data is not freely available to them; data is released only for a fee. Such a system is not interoperable. In a datadriven world, the system should be open with the data flowing freely to patients. When healthcare information is made readily accessible with the right technology, data can be processed at the point of care. This will prevent the accumulation of voluminous medical notes on a daily basis.

Experts in the field say that much of the healthcare data generated at the point of care remains as such in an unstructured manner. This data is often not used constructively. This is where professional data entry services can help – all the clinical data needed will be captured efficiently so that the best care can be provided to patients. Data is collected from various sources, and electronic health records and logs are well maintained. Overall, the healthcare information obtained can be made more usable.

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