The company is a medical reimbursement company that deals with patients’ personal information from social security, to medical history and banking information. As technology in the healthcare field continues to expand, we have begun to use more big data to store all our patient personal health records and our employees’ personal records. Maintenance and processing of various and high volume data have created the “Big Data” challenge. As Gartner (2015) said: “Big Data is high-volume, -velocity and -variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making” [6]. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountable Act (HIPAA) laws, the healthcare industry is privy and held to a very high standard to protect and keep all patients’ personal information private, safe and secured; Digitalization and accumulation large healthcare data provides great potential for healthcare data. The key to the best patient-centric, evidence-base and accountability care is delivered through big data in healthcare (Yang, Li, Wang, Chen, Wu, Wang, Pan and Mulder 2015). There are still many healthcare challenges that need to be addressed to help enhance healthcare services. With cloud computing in healthcare, the company is one step closer to lowering their operational cost and eliminating the use of hardware and software to store data. With all the company’s data stored on networks, servers and applications it makes it easier for the data to be accessible any part of the world. Some of the advantages of cloud computing includes availability, performance and load balancing (Malekabadi, Javan & Akbari 2015). When all of the company’s data is stored on the networks and computed, it is taken by Iron Mountain and stored in a remote location. With the continued growth of innovative technology cloud computing will continue to
Complexity is part of the nature of many things in our existence especially those that matter the most. The health industry is a complex system most of all due to the presence of the human factor within it. This particular complexity means that every situation is truly unique based on the psychological characteristics of each protagonist, the context within which they are evolving and the communal rules, sometimes unspoken, that govern the stakeholders. As a result, even a clear cut resurgence of an issue or scenario may fail to resolve if a leader blindly applies a previous strategy without first considering the specific intricacies of the situation (Plsek, 2003).
I agree with you hospitals and other healthcare facilities are like any other organization and need to management team who have strong strategic planning skills. Dynamic nature of healthcare system where new innovations are highly desirable, encourage dynamic strategic thinking and healthcare managers need to assemble strategies which can be adjusted as per changing market landscape. In doing so the healthcare managers initiate strategic planning process which focus on relevant and lasting transformations for the future and integrates the organization’s short, medium and long term objectives. As you mentioned, that a heath care facility may fail because of its failure to think strategically while and adapt to latest technologies.
The ability of companies, governments and healthcare to harness data is important to find hidden information about how things are working in their organization. These organizations can then decide how thing should work and how things might work better depending on management decisions. Companies and governments use big data to track and analyze processes and customers for profit and efficiency. In healthcare big data is analyzed to understand how effective treatments and facilities are and make necessary changes. The bigger the data set the more necessary it is to use proper analytic techniques, types of analytic techniques are descriptive, predictive and prescriptive.
In the field of public health the concept of bid data is defined as utilizing large scale information from different sources to understand the outcome of an outbreak or disease. According to Khoury and Ioannidis (2014), the use of big data can help understand problems at a faster rate. For instance, epidemiologist are always working hard to identify which populations are more at risk and use credible internet sources and systematic reviews for information. As opposed to the earlier times of John Snow who took a longer time to understand the reasoning for the outbreak in London, big data is able to shortened the time and help reduce the prevalence of disease. Hence, improve the health outcomes of populations (Khoury and Ioannidis, 2014). A major priority in the field of public health is to based prevention programs based on evidence based research that possess statistically significant in the
Data is one of the most valuable assets in any healthcare organization. The adoption and use of EHR systems makes it possible to collect, store, and analyze more data than ever before. Through the use of analytical tools this data is being turned into meaningful and qualitative information with which to support the clinical, operational, and financial decisions of the healthcare facility. The process of organizing and managing data so as to drive quality improvement efforts and business development within the healthcare industry is known as healthcare informatics. The article, Making Data Smart: Practical informatics is helping transform data into health intelligence, and now moving into day-to-day HIM work, by Mark Crawford, details how the HIM professional can utilize the emerging EHR applications and technologies to support health informatics and streamline workflows, improve quality care, and reduce expenditures.
The nation collects volumes of health information, however much of the data remain siloed and difficult to compile. These healthcare big data siloes are making it difficult for insurers, providers, pharmacies and others to truly work together to coordinate care (Clough, 2016). Furthermore, these stakeholders are inhibiting coordinated care through their prevention of using real world data for decision making. Consequently, each patient must still take control of their healthcare and provide physicians, pharmacists, healthcare facilities, and other stakeholders with updated information on their situation, visits, and
One of the foremost concerns faced by hospital and healthcare set ups today, is that of the increasing discrepancy between the amount of data created and the data that is actually understood and consumed. According to a survey carried out by Frost & Sullivan, nearly 1 billion terabytes (and counting), of data is held by hospitals and medical centers. This data is estimated to grow more than 40 times over the decade. The need for Data intelligence is no longer a stand by thought. Organizations are facing a growing pressure to become more efficient in the way they store, utilize and share medical/healthcare data.
The use of technology in healthcare has greatly increased and grown, including the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and electronic medical records (EMRs). With the vast influx of data, the need for consistent gathering of patient data in an organized manner is crucial for patient care. Big data does not only consist of volume but different varieties and formats as well (i.e. diagnostic images, objective, and subjective data). The American Hospital Association conducted a survey revealing an increase of electronic health records (EHRs) doubling from 2009 to 2011 (Murdoch & Detsky, 2013). Murdoch and Detsky (2013) expressed this data is often perceived as a result of health care instead of essential to the health care process.
The article “The Importance of Medical Coding as it Applies to Big Data Trends in Healthcare” talked about the importance of medical coding in relation to hospital’s data systems. Medical coding is a numerical process that brings diagnoses and healthcare systems together. It allows hospitals, physician offices and clinics to share patient information via big data trends. The article stressed that having access to medical trends from many sources is a valuable tool for healthcare facilities. Medical coding specialists hold the most advanced position in the big data trend. The coding specialist holds the key to unlock the door to aid in the development of health systems. The medical coder helps to create a team approach bringing together the
Big data is challenging and changing healthcare systems very quickly. In order to keep up with all the new technologies and continue improving health, it is very important to know how to maintain the momentum of this movement. It is necessary to have cross-sector imperatives and strategies to help stakeholders reach their goals [4]. Here are some cross-sector imperatives that are most important to be followed:
Data mining is used in various forms by different agencies. Detecting fraud and abuse is one of the benefits of the use of data mining. The healthcare industry is big and one of the biggest payers is CMS. However, detecting fraud and abuse in healthcare claims is crucial because billions of money is being wasted in unnecessary care.
Data in the healthcare industry can include patient demographics, financial information or clinical documentation. Management of this data can include storing in a file, file server, an email, an electronic healthcare system or other locations. Therefore, Data Management is the process of managing how the data collected and how it is stored so that it can be used efficiently and effectively in the future.
Informatics has streamlined paperwork by putting information in a centralized location. Informatics has many avenues for developing improvement to patient care. The
The healthcare sector has seen some remarkable transformation from the once chaotic, expensive and substandard services to quality and efficient health care services. Big data and its analytics brought out this change and can be seen the following areas in the health sector