Electronic Health Reporter

Guest post by Scott Jordan, co-founder and chief innovation officer, Central Logic

Gone are the days when IT department gurus ran lengthy reports, sifting through numbers and analyzing data until the wee hours of the morning, all in the quest of fancy profit center reports to impress the C-Suite. Especially in hospital settings where lives are on the line, data in 2016 must be delivered in real time, and even more importantly, must be relevant, connected, and able to be understood, interpreted and acted upon immediately by a myriad of users.

Data That’s Right

Today, having the right data intelligence that is actionable is paramount. It’s no longer enough for analytics to only interpret information from the past to make the right predictions and decisions. With the changing healthcare landscape, it’s increasingly important that data intelligence must also be relevant and the tools agile enough to provide an accurate assessment of current events and reliably point to process and behavior changes for improved outcomes … in real time.

All tall order for any IT solution, much less one in healthcare where robust security parameters, patient satisfaction concerns and HIPAA regulations are just the tip of the iceberg a health system must consider.

Data That’s Connected

The good news is data technology tools now exist that offer interoperability features – from inside and outside a hospital’s four walls – this allows providers to exchange and process electronic health information easily, quickly, intuitively and accurately, with reliably replicable solutions.

When users can see the full complement of a patient’s health record, they can more accurately improve care coordination and save lives. Specifically, connected patient records can:

• avoid duplication of diagnostic procedures,
• properly evaluate test results and treatment outcomes, regardless of where care was delivered,
• share basic patient data during referrals and get information after specialist visits,
• view medications, regardless of where prescribed, avoiding drug interactions, medication abuse, etc., and
• view allergy and pre-existing condition information, especially valuable to Emergency Department transfers.

These IT solutions are an even bigger win when they can interact with virtually any EMR platform in use at a hospital, saving that system time and money with improved efficiencies. The best tools are user-friendly and operate on an intuitive dashboard; they are portable and work well on any platform – tablets, smart phones, texts, email, pagers, etc.; and they are adaptable and flexible enough to recognize and properly process a host of terms, conditions and scenarios.

Data That’s Automated

While connected data will improve a hospital’s bottom line, connected and automated data can be the Holy Grail for healthcare IT as well as the financial suite.

When information is connected and predictably automated, systems reliably reduce the time from each event’s occurrence to knowledge, learnings and take-away. Thus, hospitals improve patient care coordination with easy-to-interpret and complete data that reduces data analytics production cost and allows stakeholders (at all levels) to affect change. The process must follow a predictable process of validation, aggregation, analysis, visualization, distribution/availability, information interpretation, and end ultimately, in action.

When providers and hospital systems can finally bring this actionable data intelligence to real life situations in real time, information leaps from the page and morphs to life-saving decisions that save lives. C-Suite executives recognize these financial efficiencies, providers benefit from improved work environments and reduced stress, and patients receive better care coordination across the continuum. Definitely a win-win-win on the healthcare IT horizon for 2016.