Health analytics study reveals pathway to effective data strategy

eHealthNews.nz: AI & Analytics

Health analytics study reveals pathway to effective data strategy

Wednesday, 10 August 2022

Share |

FEATURE - Industry Innovation Article - InterSystems

Brian Biggs, Director, Customer Relations and Sales, InterSystems New Zealand

Presenting in Auckland on the results of a new InterSystems ANZ study on healthcare analytics and interoperability, I was posed a question. If we can’t fully trust our healthcare data, what does that mean for the government’s national health information strategy?

The short answer is, we have our work cut out for us. For a longer answer, read on. There is light at the end of the tunnel!

With tech advisory firm, Ecosystm, we recently surveyed 60 healthcare executives across New Zealand and 120 in Australia. Respondents held senior roles in public and private organisations, large and small hospitals, in city and rural locations, and were screened to ensure knowledge of their organisation’s analytics adoption and roadmap.

We found that New Zealand healthcare organisations have a problem with their data. While analytics is central to achieving their objectives, the survey also shows a lack of maturity in actual capabilities.

This presents challenges for the New Zealand government’s national health information strategy. Almost all healthcare executives say data analytics is a top priority, but most don’t fully trust their data and admit that data quality is a challenge. And few organisations have a holistic data strategy to fix the problem.

Analytics key to achieving business objectives
Looking at organisations’ top business objectives, the survey found conflicting demands to improve clinical outcomes while reducing costs. Complying with government mandates was the number one objective, chosen by 64% of respondents, followed by cost optimisation (46%) and improving clinical outcomes (42%).

Data is central to complying with mandates and resolving the conflicting demands between cost optimisation and improved outcomes. We use data to diagnose diseases, manage care, run hospitals, and justify payments. Data fuels research and discovery, measures efficacy and informs health policy. In short, data is the foundation of healthcare innovation.

Not surprisingly, 79% of ANZ organisations, and 82% in New Zealand, said analytics was either intrinsic to all their business priorities or a top priority in its own right.

Improved outcomes at an optimised cost
When asked about the outcomes they expect from analytics solutions, respondents were closely aligned with the goals of value-based healthcare – improved outcomes at an optimised cost. Key outcomes included identification of patient risk (44%), improved patient outcomes or experience (41%), reduced clinical errors (36%) and reduced costs (34%).

But not all data is available for analytics, and many stakeholders don’t trust it. Only 44% of executives surveyed fully trusted their data. In addition, 51% say data quality is one of the top challenges they face in successfully implementing analytics.

Ensuring data quality requires a data-driven organisational culture where people and processes are focused on accuracy across the data value chain and consistency across disparate data sources.

But, when asked about their organisation’s data strategy, only 32% of respondents said they had a digital transformation strategy that includes interoperability, data governance and analytics. The lack of a holistic data strategy is a significant roadblock for the remaining 68%.

Lack of holistic data strategy limits decision-making
Without a holistic data strategy, many healthcare organisations are limited in the number of datasets they can analyse. This means that clinicians are making decisions crucial to patient outcomes with only a fraction of the total data available.

While around half (52%) of organisations could use in-patient clinical data in their analytics solutions, only 41% could use data from diagnostic systems. Only 38% could use patient administration data. Clinical data from outpatient services was available for analytics solutions at around a third (34%) of organisations, 24% could use text from communications systems, and 23% could use log files.

Fewer than a fifth (18%) of organisations could use sensor or medical device data – one of the fastest-growing sources – in their analytics solutions. To deliver the desired outcomes, all these figures need to be close to 100%.

Leaders want change in data exchange mechanisms
Healthcare leaders want effective data analytics. And, according to our survey, they want a change in the interoperability environment that enables it.

In fact, 94% of healthcare executives want to see a change in their existing data exchange mechanisms. In particular, 66% of respondents want their organisations to focus more on the standardisation of data exchange to achieve their broader objectives.

Thankfully, change is on its way. New technology such as smart data fabrics helps to solve the interoperability challenge. These solutions connect and synthesise data by embedding a wide range of analytics capabilities, including data exploration, business intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning. They make it faster and easier for organisations to gain new insights and power predictive or prescriptive services and applications.

And this is helping them gain new insights and make better decisions for both the business and their patients. Importantly, it also allows existing legacy applications and data to remain in place; meaning organisations can maximise the value of previous technology investments.

Our survey found that around three quarters (74%) of healthcare executives say they are confident smart data fabrics would benefit their organisations, with 44% currently evaluating their use.

If the government’s national health information strategy accelerates this trend, healthcare providers will be much better placed to provide the high quality data needed to make it a success. To read find out more, download The State of Healthcare Analytics & Interoperability Study.

About the Author
Brian Biggs is Director, Customer Relations and Sales, New Zealand for InterSystems, a creative data technology provider dedicated to helping customers solve the most critical scalability, interoperability and speed problems. Based in Auckland, Biggs leads the company’s New Zealand operations, providing local resources to a growing customer base and ensuring that InterSystems is responsive to their needs.