By Laura Breedlove, SVP of Product, hc1
Twitter: @hc1dotcom
Healthcare data is a powerful tool that can reveal critical trends across multiple demographics. As use of electronic health records has become ubiquitous over the past 20 years, data has become more readily available across health systems including lab test results, treatments, diagnoses and even information on a patient’s genetics, environment and lifestyle.
Interoperability, or the seamless sharing of patient data across healthcare systems and organizations, can optimize the health of individuals by providing current insights into applicable patient care and can help patient care achieve a higher level of personalization and move away from a one-size-fits-all approach.
Recent survey results from The Harris Poll show that 95% of surveyed physicians believe increased data interoperability will help improve patient outcomes, and 86% believe it will reduce the time to diagnosis. With lab testing playing a role in almost every case, the need to quickly integrate that data and streamline lab operations has never been more urgent.
We know that the healthcare sector can be slow to update legacy testing practices, but ensuring that data gathered in clinical laboratories flows easily between stakeholders in the healthcare information system is vital to clinical decision making. Tapping into this actionable intelligence can not only improve turnaround time and increase productivity, but also can eliminate the high cost of obsolete or unreimbursed tests and reduce administrative workload.
The amount of medical data is only going to grow more robust, so putting an infrastructure in place that can integrate, and quickly analyze the insights will help deliver patient-centered, value-driven care.
We already have the data and the technology necessary to take steps for better population health management. Now, we must collaborate to proactively remove data silos to quickly identify warning signs to achieve timelier disease detection and better health monitoring.
As part of this collaboration process, it’s important to share knowledge and resources with others in the healthcare industry to help unlock actionable intelligence within the data-rich clinical lab using real-time analytics.
Events, webinars and conferences foster conversations that produce innovative strategies, strengthen team-building dynamics, and provide networking opportunities. By fostering collaboration across the healthcare community among healthcare providers, laboratories, hospitals, health systems and technology service providers, we can build an equitable and personalized approach to care through data interoperability.