Data Innovation Day 2014” sponsored by the Center for Data Innovation, gathered expert speakers together recently to discuss many of the challenges and issues our society is facing to incorporate big data into our everyday lives. A panel held to specifically discuss healthcare analytics was monitored by Kendra Casey Plank, Senior Editor for Bloomberg BNA.
Panelists including Niall Brennan, Acting Director, Offices of Enterprise Management, for CMS, Russ Cucina, MD, Medical Director of Information Technology at the UCSF Health System, Marcia Kean, Chairman for Strategic Initiatives at Feinstein Kean Healthcare, Nina Preuss, Program Manager, for the NIH funded Neuroimaging Informatics, Tools, and Resources Clearinghouse, described many of the challenges facing healthcare analytics today.
The fact is that a great deal of new information is now available from private plans, from clinical trials, from doctors, hospital EHRs, from quality surveys, plus non-traditional information is available from web sites and social media. However, there are problems, since the data is not always interoperable and the lack of interoperability exists across all EHRs. Also, it hard to find all the intelligent minds needed to sort out information and to address big data issues and problems.
All of the panelists agreed that the consumer of health services often called the sleeping giant needs to be mobilized. Consumers need to be able to take their own information and combine the data with Blue Button, so that it will be possible to download claims history, use apps to utilize data and sort it out, and let the consumer know what they should tell the doctor at their next visit.
Consumers need to be empowered with the ownership of their data. Today, there is beginning to be an explosion of consumer devices plus implantable and wearable devices used both outside and in the home that track a vast amount of medical information. However, there needs to not only be a marriage between science inquiry, clinical trials, and massive data collections, but also importantly with the data obtained from individuals using wearable devices.
The panelists all agreed that the doctor should have clinical decision software to enable the patient and doctor to talk about the appropriate therapies. Right now the tools to provide information are in the hands of the doctor, but soon the knowledge loop is going to include the patient.
There is an immediate need to develop all legal and policies to meet the new information era. For example, if the doctor gets the information wrong, and the patient suffers, then can the patient sue the doctor? What is the standard of care and who is to blame? One panelist thought that with support from medical societies and others, doctors will be in a safe harbor.
Other questions remain. Using vast amounts of data to treat patients can also have an impact on the innovative intuitive physician. How will the physician with top intuitive skills use the all the data available in databases but at the same time, use their own intuition to effectively advise the patient.
In a few years, with crowdsourcing information available, individual health data may be going to complete strangers for additional opinions. This will ideally empower the consumer but will this additional information available from so from many sources worldwide help or hinder medical care?
For more information on events, email info@datainnovation.org.