Putting Information at the Center of Smarter Health Care
Guest commentary by Wayne Janzen, Executive Information Agenda Consultant for Global Government and Health Care, IBM
Health care organizations have made significant investments in IT over the years to improve both patient care and business processes. For genomic research, predictive medicine, and even basic preventative care, more information is available now than ever before. However, the need for more intelligent health care remains at a tipping pointThe push toward higher standards in health care will only continue given The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes a $19 billion allocation toward health information technology, was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama this week. In an age when we cannot afford not to have health care reform, intelligent information lays the foundation for a new approach to transforming the delivery of health care and contributes to a new infrastructure for the health economy.
Despite large investments in areas such as electronic medical records, diagnostic imaging, practice management and scheduling systems, many health care organizations remain data-rich and information-poor due to the volume and complexity of data they have to deal with. Medical mistakes kill nearly 100,000 people every year, according to the Institute of Medicine. "That is equivalent to a 747 crashing every other day," according to Denis Cortese, MD, president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic. These errors, more than half of them preventable, cost the United States as much as $29 billion each year.
While most health information systems are designed to provide data quickly -- one patient at a time -- most are not designed for the cross-patient analysis required to answer complex questions. Meanwhile, critical opportunities for collaboration and interoperable information-sharing are often missed. In health care, on-demand access to pertinent and complete information about patients is mission critical.
Are you getting the most out of your data ?
One of the greatest challenges to our health care system today is that valuable data remains in disparate systems built for speed and performance, not aggregation and analysis. Reporting, analyzing and trending quality and cost data can provide valuable information to improve medical outcomes, but the reality is this is labor-intensive. Frequently, too much time is spent gathering and accessing data instead of analyzing information. Many providers spend millions of dollars acquiring and implementing advanced information systems that collect incredible amounts of data. According to the 2008 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Leadership Survey, 44 percent of organizations have a fully operational electronic medical records system in place at one or more of their facilities. More complex functionality, such as computerized physician order entry, physician notes or clinical documentation, is slowly being implemented and adopted. However, health care organizations often find themselves stymied when asked to prove how these new systems have affected outcomes and improved overall care and efficiency.
Implementing new systems and collecting more data is just one piece of the puzzle in the effort to achieve the new administration's goals for dramatically improving health care delivery for every American. Vast amounts of data and content must be tapped so health care organizations can better focus on their primary mission -- delivering top-quality patient care in spite of intense pressure to cover rapidly rising costs, and maintain profitability through improvements in operational efficiency.
In light of significant reforms in health care policy and new investments in health information technology, the challenge becomes to create a comprehensive, holistic view of data spread among multiple applications from myriad vendors. Data from those applications must be synchronized through careful planning and organization around a well-defined architecture supported by a robust information infrastructure. To accomplish this, health care organizations need to achieve information agility, where they are able to leverage trusted information as a strategic asset. Those with a strategy for effectively using information have an opportunity to outperform their competitors and innovate quickly while maintaining high levels of patient care. Some of the most successful health care organizations are developing an Information Agenda to do just that.
An Information Agenda is an approach for transforming information into a trusted source that can be leveraged across applications, processes and decisions. It allows organizations to achieve information agility by accelerating the pace at which information can be managed independent of applications or business processes.
An effective Information Agenda can help health care organizations:
● improve quality of care;
● create a safer patient environment;
● increase revenue and gain entry into new markets;
● reduce costs and enhance operational efficiency;
● introduce new services quickly;
● improve clinician productivity and efficiency;
● meet regulatory requirements and reduce risk exposure;
● increase compliance visibility; and
● protect patient and financial data and mitigate fraud risks.
Four key components of an Information Agenda are imperative for addressing the information needs of health care business processes.
Information strategy - In creating an information strategy, you must take into account the primary information-centric clinical and business imperatives that drive virtually every decision. These include areas such as cost reduction and improved efficiency; profitable growth; quality; safety; governance and risk. A vision for managing each of these areas can help guide decisions and determine how best to support business goals.
Information infrastructure - A unified information infrastructure enables the effective creation, capture, management and use of information associated with patients, services, products and market. By deploying an information infrastructure that meets both immediate and future needs, health care organizations can begin the journey of using information in new ways to enable smarter health care.
Information governance - Information governance establishes standards for data quality, management processes and accountability. These standards help improve business performance through the creation of standard definitions and processes that establish a more disciplined approach to managing data and information across the enterprise.
Roadmap - An Information Agenda roadmap provides the direction to help unlock the value of information for not only improved care, but the delivery of trusted, accurate information to optimize clinical and financial performance. The first step in creating a step-by-step plan is to identify and prioritize IT projects that have the greatest impact in helping health care organizations achieve their strategic imperatives
Consistently delivering trusted information, securely, to the right people at the right time, provides the ability to use information in entirely new ways to improve care delivery and operational performance. New technology allows data capture from a host of medical devices, images and laboratory diagnostics almost anywhere. In recent years, the cost of storing and managing that data has come down dramatically, and the ability to apply sophisticated analytical tools has improved clinical outcomes along with the ability to ensure patient privacy. As high-bandwidth communications and high-performance computing continues to evolve, trusted and secure information for smarter health care will become more critical.
The volume, variety and velocity of data in health care is a very good example of where our world needs "new intelligence." With information at the center, it will be easier to manage and process medical records to lower the cost and increase the quality of health care, put more research and genetic data to work, and shift from a system that treats disease to one that better prevents and manages it.