Why has healthcare analytics become very important in healthcare?
Well the reasons are three fold.
Firstly , IT adoption in healthcare industry is on the rise. In the US even before Obama care cam e into the picture, many healthcare providers, physician groups and community health centers had started adopting IT. In Europe NHS was at the fore front of concepts like ‘One Patient, One Record’. Though the NHS strategy has undergone a change but the objective remains to digitize Healthcare. Continental Europe has been adopting IT at a faster rate than US or UK, with countries like Holland, Belgium, Norway and Germany leading the way. Not to be left behind India and China are on the same route.
Secondly there has been increasing adoption of IT standards in Healthcare. Many hospitals are on HL7 and with the adoption of ICD 10 by the US, most Healthcare providers and Insurance firms will be on the same standard. Similarly there are moves to bring the Medical Devices and Pharmaceuticals on the same standards as the EMRs so as to enable the interoperability of data.
Thirdly, Due to IT adoption and introduction of standards there is tonnes of data available. Technically there are three sources of medical data available to a hospital or care giver.
- The patient record and medical history
- The hospital records that are available with the care provider of treatment regime for similar diseases
- Online medical encyclopedias and dictionaries
Now a good treatment regime should involve information from all three sources. and here is greatest scope for analytics. A good clinical decision support system based on analytical technology will be able to help the physician to narrow down on the disease and chart a course for an effective treatment regime.