Attendees at the 2023 Health Datapalooza converged over a common goal: unlocking data and developing smart and cost-effective policies to innovate and improve health and health care for all.
Experts representing all sectors of the health care industry were present to share thoughts on the current state of health care data as well as efforts underway to address some of the most pressing challenges and barriers to data access, quality and equity.
Participants included representatives from CMS, Microsoft, Google, FDA and NCQA, to name a few.
😕 Current Challenges
⚠️ Errors, inefficiencies, and gaps in medical health records
⚠️ Underlying health data infrastructure – fragmented and siloed
⚠️ Lack of data standardization and governance across providers, payors, government, health systems
⚠️ Underlying biases in data sources, algorithms and value-based incentives
⚠️ Plethora of quality measurement tools that operate separately and are time-consuming and costly to maintain year over year (HEDIS, STARS, CAHPS, etc.)
⚠️ Different versions of interoperability standards
⚠️ Data privacy and security concerns
⚠️ Online misinformation and malinformation (deliberately misleading information) can go viral before facts and truth can prevail
The list looks daunting, but here comes the good news.
😄 Good News
✅ Many of the participants at Datapalooza represent organizations that are part of new and ongoing initiatives meant to address barriers to the standardization and systemization of quality healthcare data. Here is a sample of such initiatives:
✅ CMS is working with public and private groups to align and streamline quality measures
✅ The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for HIT is working on interoperability standards that are backward compatible
✅ The newly formed Coalition for Trust in Health and Science (over 50 healthcare organizations) will combat misinformation and disinformation with comprehensive speed.
✅ Blockchain technology from Patientory to enable patients to control their own data in clinical trials.
✅ TEFCA, developed by ONC, is designed to increase and enhance interoperability and improve the ability of providers and their patients to securely access and use data from different sources.
Each healthcare organization, be it provider groups, payors, public, private or government agencies, needs to get their ‘data house’ in order by developing a strong DataOps platform that addresses quality, access and privacy.
Then, those healthcare organizations can take full advantage of the ongoing transformation of healthcare data through education and even participation in the many significant initiatives focused on making a difference in the healthcare system and ultimately the health and wellbeing of people everywhere.
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