McKinsey & Company recently published an article about what it calls a "big data revolution" in American healthcare.
The revolution began when entities like the government, payers and pharmaceutical companies began aggregating and sharing their stores of healthcare data thanks to advancements in technology that has given them the ability to collect and analyze data from multiple sources.
Also, payers have transitioned from pay-per-service model to a different framework that ties patient outcomes to provider and pharmaceutical company reimbursements. The drive for better reimbursements (and probably other more compassionate motives) has increased demand for data to improve patient care.
Mercy Health in Cincinnati uses the Explorys Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) applications to manage big data for its organization. SaaS modules including Explore, Measure, Registry and Engage give Mercy Health the ability to effectively target its most high-risk patients.
Emphasizing preventive healthcare for America's most high-risk patients could produce billions in savings for the U.S. healthcare system. For example, a recent CNBC Nightly Business Report segment stated that 9 million disabled and older Americans qualify both for Medicaid and Medicare.
The sickest 20 percent of those 9 million accounts for two-thirds of health-related spending within those programs. Big data can help to cut out unnecessary care. However, according to Explorys CEO Stephen McHale, U.S. healthcare needs to make the paradigm shift from acute care to preventive care.
"It's not just the technology that's going to solve the problem, but it's going to be change management," McHale explained to CNBC. "Who should we have involved? What kinds of care coordinators should we have involved?"
McKinsey has identified five pathways to help providers choose their big data solutions and priorities, and here they are below.
1. Right living: using big data to engage patients in their own preventive care, including appropriate diet, fitness and other lifestyle choices.
2. Right care: providing optimal treatment thanks to coordination among multiple providers, which avoids duplication of treatments that haven't previously worked.
3. Right provider: choosing doctors and other medical professionals based on their ability to achieve good outcomes for patients.
4. Right value: encourages providers to use big data to identify cost-cutting opportunities, as well as approaches that provide maximum impact for patients.
5. Right innovation: using big data to identify treatments that work.
Along with the usefulness of big data comes another challenge: finding enough skilled workers to analyze the data. As reimbursements become increasingly tied to performance, workers with data analytics experience and education will become more and more in demand.
Also, solutions providers like Explorys can expect the hungry healthcare market to continue demanding their technologies.
Edited by
Ashley Caputo
