A data which is collected for managing a healthcare system, and for offering healthcare services, or conducting health research can be defined as Heath Data. Maximum health data are sourced and collected regularly without making any pre-defined research question, segregated to administrative as well as clinical data
A silent transformation is taking place in the healthcare data. Several years after the HITECH Act there is a fast increase in the demand for electronic medical records. We can witness the fact that the resulting data is getting integrated with various other sources, for example, clinical registries, insurance claims, and social determinants of health to provide high-quality data sets for many predictions and analyses to take action. Data is driving the future for healthcare. Major Stakeholders across the industry are concerned about the Big Data transformation and how well they can put the data for best use.
Big data and algorithm production managed to develop interest and excitement among the predictive analytics. An explosion indeed happened in the health care data—welcoming new technologies for sequencing of DNA, collection of data of continuous monitoring and social media data reported by patients. As per the market analyst, the amount of Health data is predicted to grow and reach 25,000 petabytes by the year 2020. The best thing is that in the last few years, the industry experienced a wave created by new technologies, which also includes open-source ones, that have emerged can process and manage all this healthcare data.
In the Datavant’s Future of Health Data Summit in Washington, DC there was a 40-minute panel consisting of notable moderators and 4 – 5 expert panelists. One of the key panelists of the event was David Shulkin (Former VA Secretary), who spoke about using data for preventing suicides of veterans. He appeared a bit skeptical regarding things that are heading to in the coming time, predicting some incremental changes to be noticed in the healthcare system as one of the most probable outcomes of the conflict happening between Medicare-for-All Democrats as well as the Republicans wishing to crush down the federal involvement.
Mona Siddiqui (Chief Data Officer, HHS) being another important panelist of the event put forward facts about the potential to make application of the planet’s biggest healthcare data (from CMS) in the hackathons. She also recommends the application to face the industry challenges and system redesigns. Shulkin interjected about working in association with the government was, “not for the feint of heart,” and “, not a great strategy for a young company.” The other panelists of the event also discussed that patients will prefer to come on board when they get to see how the application of data can help in their care, and understand that the spectacular data breaches will not completely erode the trust of patients in the system. In the coming time, several other things will come into picture regarding the future, usability, and benefits of Health data in the industry and for the betterment of the public and government.
