Data plays a transformative role in today’s healthcare ecosystem. From providing vital patient health information for better diagnostics and care to delivering personalized recommendations based on patients’ specific health needs and consumers’ preferences in terms of time and channels of engagement—healthcare organizations can leverage the capabilities of analytics to drive actionable insights that revolutionize patient journeys. Healthcare data has various components and can be categorized based on sources through which data were gathered and the quality of data is largely dependent on the methods used to collect it.

Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Electronic Health Records (EHR), Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO), Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD), Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), wearables, Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices and other Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) tools are some of the key sources that generate valuable health data. In the healthcare industry, Enterprise Data Warehouses (EDW) have helped healthcare practitioners collect and analyze data from multiple sources in a single, integrated data repository. MHealth tools have helped care providers easily send or receive information as well as order documents. Healthcare organizations are also creating patient engagement portals to access medical records and communicate with patients.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Healthcare analysts use the following process for successful data management

DATA CAPTURE Acquire key data elements Assure data quality Integrate data capture into operational workflow	DATA ANALYSIS Interpret data Evaluate data quality Discover new information in the data	DATA PROVISIONING Move data from transactional systems into the Enterprise data warehouse Build visualization for use by clinicians

In the world of consumerism and value-based care, patients as consumers are attuned to hyper-personalized and high-touch experiences powered by data in other industries and they expect the same from healthcare as well. However, while industries including the retail, banking, consumer goods and other sectors are achieving exponential growth using data, the healthcare industry is comparatively still in its nascent stages. Legacy systems and infrastructure, high storage and data transfer costs, accuracy of self-reported data, data standardization, regulatory challenges, data privacy are amongst the major factors that hinder adoption.

In the wake of the pandemic, there is a growing need for virtual healthcare solutions and massive volumes of data exchange happening across the globe to broaden the horizons of care. Healthcare leaders are taking several initiatives to rise above the growing challenges in the healthcare data exchange and management landscape. The American Health Information Management (AHIMA) has proposed 10 characteristics to guide standards of data quality , which are accessibility, consistency, currency, granularity, precision, accuracy, comprehensiveness, definition, relevancy, and timeliness.

COVID-19 sparked a long-overdue telehealth revolution. There is a paradigm shift in telemedicine adoption, and a whopping 74% of care providers have increased their use of telehealth services due to COVID-19. The overwhelming 83% of patients say they are likely to continue using telemedicine once the pandemic has ended, and through telemedicine solutions, clinics have achieved cost savings of $19-$121 per visit. Telehealth uses electronic information along with remote patient monitoring technologies to allow virtual care options, health conscious learning and other non-clinical services.

The underlying success factors for healthcare systems to achieve high-quality data, would be to rethink their approach to data aggregation. Organizations can adopt three key tactics.

• 1. Implement standards for data content and documentation within the healthcare industry
• 2. Implement continuous quality improvement strategies to support quality data and information
• 3. Educate consumers regarding their role in ensuring the quality of healthcare data

To learn more about harnessing insight-driven healthcare to transform patient engagement, give us a shout!