Health Datapalooza held June 1-3, 2014 attracted visionaries to discuss the responsible use of open health data. The sessions explored the policies, standards, practices, and collaborations that will enable data sharing across the health system.
As the healthcare system moves towards a patient-centered health system powered by data, new issues need to be explored related to health data that concern business, clinical care, consumer research, technology, and other current topics.
Keynoter Elliott Fisher, MD, MPH, Director of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice located at the James W. Squires Professor, Geisel School of Medicine and one of the originators of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), discussed how effective the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care has been for more than 20 years.
The Atlas project has been able to document variations in how medical resources are distributed and used in the U.S. The project uses Medicare data to provide information and analyses on national, regional, and local markets as well as hospitals and their affiliated physicians.
He stressed the need for a high integrity healthcare system where shared decision-making plays an important part requiring consumers to play an import role. The goal is to have a healthcare system that is safe, provides reliable and effective care, and provides people with the best possible care at the lowest possible cost.
As Dr. Fisher explained, “ACOs are a new model that promotes strategic integration and rewards based on quality care. As a result, the ACO model is able to offer a potential win-win for providers, payers, and patients alike. Today, there are 600 plus ACOs while in 2013, there were just 328. The result is that more people are kept out of hospitals by using technology plus costs are down.
At another keynote talk, the Honorable Jeremy Hunt, MP, Secretary of State for Health, for the UK, pointed out that medical errors present enormous problems to the healthcare system and that 5 percent of hospital deaths are avoidable. He told the audience how one hospital in Seattle, made a serious error with a patient, found out why the mistake happened, corrected the mishap so that the error wouldn’t happen again, and then went on to became one of the safest hospitals in the U.S.
He said, “In order to deal effectively and lower the number of medical errors, we must have an atmosphere where people aren’t frightened of litigation, will inform the right sources when colleagues make errors, perform independent inspections, have enough staff to treat patients, provide for transparency, and use technology effectively to curb errors.