Big data and the future of healthcare industry

Nov 30, 2017

ONE of the greatest challenges facing governments around the world is how to provide their citizens with effective and affordable healthcare. This is in fact a highly complex set of problems with multiple causes and a variety of actions needed in response. Happily, advances in technology are holding out the promise of addressing the challenge.

As in developed countries around the world, Malaysia's healthcare providers must deal with a rapidly ageing population, leading to an influx of patients, and increasing pressure on general practitioners and hospital emergency departments. People are living longer -- which actually reflects one of Malaysia's success stories -- healthcare. In the 60 years since independence, we have increased our lifespan by about 20 years.

Improvements in primary public healthcare, such as sanitation, food safety and protection against infectious diseases via vaccination, have all contributed to this increased life expectancy. Unfortunately, however, living longer has not translated to better quality of life.

Of particular concern are the statistics on obesity and diabetes. The National Health and Morbidity Survey 2015 revealed that obese Malaysians make up 17.7 per cent of the population, compared with just 4.4 per cent in 1996.

The same survey found that 17.5 per cent of Malaysians aged 18 and above -- around 3.5 million people -- have diabetes. In 2006, this figure was 11.6 per cent.

One thing is clear from these numbers -- more Malaysians are having to live longer in ill health.

Will the country be able to cope with the increasing number of the elderly and ill? The proposed Aged Healthcare Act is a start, though its primary aim is better regulation and monitoring of aged healthcare centres in the country.

The healthcare industry has always generated large amounts of data for purposes of patient care, compliance and record-keeping. The advent of the Internet of Things has caused an explosion in data, from sensors to health-tracking applications and devices that healthcare providers can tap into to optimise resources, bring greater efficiencies and develop an integrated healthcare system.

The capture and analysis of this mass of raw data has the potential to transform healthcare, to enhance the accessibility, affordability and quality of healthcare to meet the needs of Malaysians across different stages of their healthcare journey -- from diagnosis and treatment, to post-discharge follow-up.

Big data in healthcare refers to electronic health data sets that are so large and complex that it would be difficult to manage and analyse using traditional software and data management tools and methods. With big data, healthcare organisations have the ability to let multiple hospitals exchange information, leading to a 360-view of their patients, so doctors can give a more complete diagnosis.

Healthcare services companies have gained significant value through the ability to take in data from a variety of sources, such as lab and patient data, to recognise patterns and supply this data to doctors to provide recommendations on how patients can improve their health. Without Big Data, none of this would be possible and healthcare organisations would be operating without having the complete picture.

When a person's medical records are shared among all public health institutions, the patient's journey is simplified from primary to tertiary care, in both the public and private sectors, as any doctor treating the patient would have full access to his or her medical records

There are many other ways in which technology is being adopted, putting health data to work in the pursuit of improved healthcare.

For example, hospitals have begun to use radio-frequency identification (RFID) to track equipment and medicines as they move throughout their facilities. RFID scans of an item or device can capture their contents, location, manufacture date, order numbers and shipping data. This information can ensure medicines are utilised before their expiry date or quickly locate an important piece of equipment.

In the longer term, historical data on the interactions of medicines, equipment and doctors will provide valuable information for healthcare predictive analytics, as well as helping to plan purchases, train staff and improve operational efficiency.

In another advance on traditional practice, wireless sensors are being used to capture and transmit patient vitals more frequently than staff can make bedside visits. These signals can provide real-time alerts, so caregivers can respond more promptly to unexpected changes. Accumulating this data over time enables healthcare predictive analytics to proactively help predict the likelihood of an emergency, even before it could be detected with a bedside visit.

One common problem with our existing healthcare system is re-admission rates. Patients with heart disease, for example, are closely monitored in the hospital, but may skip their medications or ignore dietary and self-care instructions when they go home.

Healthcare, especially on a national level, will continue to be a major challenge for authorities. Demographic and lifestyle changes in populations, as well as outbreaks of unanticipated diseases, will constantly demand innovative responses from governments and the healthcare profession.

Fortunately, advances in healthcare data analytics are keeping pace with the evolving nature of the challenge. Patients and healthcare staff alike can be confident that technology is on their side.

Source: New Straits Times (View full article)

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Six Healthcare Trends for 2018

Nov 30, 2017

For healthcare marketers it's a time to rethink basic assumptions, challenge institutional bias, breakdown silos, and force debate around longstanding approaches to marketing. Tomorrow's marketers will be healthcare orchestra leaders. They will help set strategic pillars, sequence strategic execution, and lead go-to-market implementation that is results-driven and measurable.

Following are six healthcare impact trends that will challenge marketers in the upcoming year.

1. Payers-providers blurring the lines. Its healthcare's Wild West as health insurers become providers and health providers become payers. With spending for hospital care and total private health insurance expenditures each topping $1 trillion, paying for and delivering health services is truly in a transition. Health insurers, are venturing into primary care centered delivery models, value or outcomes-based payment schemes, retail-type customer experiences, and innovative frameworks fostering prevention and wellness. For hospitals tackling the 'business of insurance', selling and retaining health plan members is very different from traditional hospital-patient marketing. Similarly, as insurers acquire or launch provider organizations, whether retail primary care, urgent-care clinics, or hospital service centers, marketing challenges such as service-line marketing, physician engagement, and community-based branding require new approaches.

2. Navigating an out-of-pocket ecosystem. At a time when one-in-three Americans say healthcare is the biggest financial burden they face, high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have gone mainstream. HDHPs are approaching half of all employer-based coverage and almost all individual policies. This shifting financial burden creates an out-of-pocket ecosystem forcing consumers to take a close look at their healthcare budgets. It's the fuel of the healthcare consumerism movement. Once consumers find themselves in control of spending health dollars out of their own wallets, you get their attention. However, buying healthcare services--from insurance to prescription drugs to routine check-ups to MRIs--in a ways similar to other consumer goods isn't easy given health literacy disparities and inconsistent access to consumer-centric resources, plus..."Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated."

3. Healthcare consumerism, a dilemma of health inertia. We live in a nation where 190 million people have at least one chronic condition. These patients account for $3 out of every $4 spent on medical care. Still, most people believe they are significantly healthier than they are, lessening their interest in taking action to improve their health. To affect behavior change, marketers need to shift their orientation from education to inspiration, from features and functions to gut-level appeals that move people to act and engage. It's about connecting across the customer lifecycle around personal, relevant motivations and deep, sometimes even unconscious desires, like freedom, happiness, personal goals, or the ability to be a better parent or partner.

4. Social engagement is king and content is queen. Social media cuts across every customer segment and every aspect of the customer relationship. every minute there are 452,000 tweets sent, 120 new LinkedIn accounts created, 46,200 Instagram posts, and 900,000 Facebook logins with more than 50% on a mobile device, according to Business Insider. Healthcare companies are creating social communities to connect, collaborate and communicate with consumers. Today's perpetually connected consumers are impatient. Their most valued brands engage with them in an evocative, relevant dialogue. They look for social media content that is shareable, fresh, unique, and above all, worth reading. Its compelling healthcare content that attracts their interest and holds their attention around a personalized, interactive value exchange.

5. Value is in the eye of the beholder. Truth be told, value-based care is a trend that has appeared in previous years, however as momentum continues to build, it needs to be highlighted once again. Pay-for-performance reimbursement--from basic risk sharing to accountable care organizations to bundled payments--are rapidly moving healthcare toward outcomes-based financing system. Incentives and disincentives based on quality of care and patient clinical results are the new normal. Marketers must use successes to demonstrate the value in value-based care, and use any failures as lessons learned.

6. Innovation disruptively disrupting market disruptors. Innovation is sweeping across the healthcare landscape. Over the last six years there has been more than $18 billion invested in healthcare technology ventures with 2017 going down as the largest year ever for digital health funding. Entrepreneurs and risk-takers are making stunning advances in cancer, Alzheimer's, population health, and wellness. And, they're the agile innovators breaking down barriers with wearables, blockchain, artificial intelligence/AI, Internet of Things, and precision medicine. If storytelling is the new marketing, marketers will have a treasure trove of material to draw from in this era of digital health technology.

Healthcare marketers have seen sweeping changes over the last few years. Gone are days where 'product, price, place, and promotion' is the ultimate marketing framework. As healthcare marketers face full-blown marketplace transformation, there's a new priority: the need for marketing to have a power seat at the c-suite business strategy table. Why? 72% of CEOs believe the next three years will be more critical to their industry than the last 50 years--and the question is how many are ready, according to KPMG. Marketing can no longer take a functional or tactical focus, it has to expand its influence and integrate with leadership's vision-driven corporate business strategy.

Source: Managed Healthcare Executive (View full article)

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Standardizing Best Practices on the Blockchain

Nov 30, 2017

Blockchain technology has been praised as having the potential to both disrupt and unify several industries including finance, supply chain, insurance, education, government, and healthcare. The technology is still relatively new, though already the world is calling the advent of this technology the new age of digital, or the Web 3.0. So far most development has been in finance and supply chain, though the world has been holding its breath waiting to see applications in other industries.

The healthcare industry in particular can greatly benefit from having a system of secure, transparent, and readily accessible information organized on the blockchain. As new technologies emerge is paramount to put them to use in the care and well being of individuals and internationally healthcare data organization and treatments have proven to be nonuniform and often inefficient.

There is however, an innovative new blockchain-based ecosystem bridging patients and healthcare providers through deployment of smart contracts. Robomed is gearing up to make a debut in the healthcare space, an $800bn market. The company emerged as an electronic health records (EHR) ecosystem app on the Russian market last year, and since then has evolved into a healthcare ecosystem providing innovative medical smart contracts that has the capability to transform the global healthcare industry. In particular, the network's smart contract offers a patient value-based medical care founded on measured outcomes and specific clinical guidelines assigned to treating each particular medical condition.

"In the 21st century, there should be no excuse why patients with the same diagnosis sometimes receive dramatically different treatments."

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Source: Huffington Post (View full article)

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Predicting Analytics: 3 Big Data Trends in Healthcare

Nov 29, 2017

Advancements in Big Data processing tools, data mining and data organization are causing market research firms to predict huge gains in the predictive analytics market for healthcare.

Moreover, those actually working with data in healthcare organizations are beginning to see how the advent of the technology is fueling the future of patient care.

"By leveraging Big Data and scientific advancements while maintaining the important doctor-patient bond, we believe we can create a health system that will go beyond curing disease after the fact to preventing disease before it strikes by focusing on health and wellness," writes Lloyd B. Minor, MD, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, in a new report exploring the Big Data revolution, HealthITAnalytics reports.

While there are still several roadblocks to using analytics effectively to drive care, here are three ways that Big Data use can realistically revolutionize the health field:

1. Precision Medicine and Research Get a Big Data Boost

Precision medicine promises to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine, to treating individuals by using therapies and treatment plans specific to them. It does so by tapping reams of data from tools such as mobile biometric sensors, smartphone apps and genomics.

"Health data is allowing doctors to build better patient profiles and predictive models to more effectively anticipate, diagnose and treat disease," Minor writes in the report.

Moreover, collaborations and partnerships between researchers and healthcare organizations are allowing organizations to build out pools of data that they can use to build better personalized healthcare models. These new capabilities are still in early days and Minor expects Big Data capabilities and policies to grow to allow patient data to continuously inform health research.

2. Tapping Big Data for Real-Time Infection Control

The data analytics pilots "determine which central lines are due for maintenance, or identify patients that are at risk for sepsis by using 'sniffer' algorithms to assign risk scores," Hundorfean writes.

Many organizations are already putting this in practice. Geisinger Health System, for example, uses data analytics technology to monitor and analyze sepsis patient outcomes while the University of Virginia has tapped Big Data to monitor sepsis in neonatal infants.

"The networks that can figure out how to predict, and prevent infections will squeeze cost out of the system and create a safer care environment for patients," Hundorfean writes.

3. Cutting Costs with Patient Data

One of the many ways that predictive analytics help cut costs is by reducing the rate of hospital readmissions.

"The idea of predictive analytics comes in looking for relationships that are consistent with readmission that we would not have predicted or we did not understand before," Mark Wolff, chief health analytics strategist for SAS Institute, an analytics software developer says in a post on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Enterprise.nxt blog. "Once we identify those relationships, we can set up protocols on how to deal with this type of patient and manage things to prevent readmission."

Moreover, the technology can help to forecast operating room demands, optimize staffing, streamline patient care and make way for a better pharmaceutical supply chain.

"The common theme here is that there's a tremendous amount of digital data available in hospitals and in the broader healthcare community that has never been available before," Wolff told HPE's Enterprise.nxt blog. "We have algorithms -- statistical, mathematical techniques that produce incredible analysis efficiently with a high degree of confidence -- and now we're using that to tackle the problems we've all been dealing with for quite some time in a deeper, more robust way."

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Source: HealthTech (View full article)

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Healthcare interoperability barriers to watch

Nov 29, 2017

Is interoperability in healthcare a dream, or will payers, providers, and technology vendors finally come together to make data more available to one another?

An April 2016 survey by Black Book Market Research found that 83% of physician practices and 40% of hospitals admit that they are still in the planning and catch up stages when it comes to sending and sharing healthcare data.

Patricia B. Wise, RN, MS, MA, FHIMSS, retired Army COL., vice president of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) says interoperability is the "biggest barrier" health systems are facing.

Here are six reasons it is so difficult for healthcare systems to get their information to flow more smoothly.

1. The variety of EHRs and EHR interfaces

Most health systems aren't using electronic health records (EHRs) right out the box. Though EHRs are government certified to meet efficiency standards, they often need hundreds of customizations to make them user-friendly in the workplace. "In hospitals, CIOs are putting these systems in a test environment, and there can be hundreds of unique interfaces," Wise says.

Customizing EHRs through unique interfaces is one of the biggest issues when it comes to interoperability because it increases the complexity required to share information.

Addressing interoperability is also not the only issue healthcare systems face when it comes to EHRs, which means it is not always the top priority. For example implementing and maintaining EHRs can be a strain financially. The Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) estimates that the cost of an in-office EHR system at $33,000 and a software as a service (SaaS) system at $26,000. However, maintenance costs can reach $4,000 for in-office systems, and $8,000 for SaaS, annually. Many health IT experts say that this is a conservative estimate when considering new modules and technology, reporting, and support if something goes wrong.

Installing and optimizing an EHR system can also be a tedious process, especially when making that system function properly within a work culture, says Wise.

2. The growing number of data sources

Sixty million fitness, activity, and sport trackers will be sold in 2016. That number could increase to 187 million devices by 2020, according to the CCS Insight's Global Wearables Forecast released in February 2016.

Providers are still wrestling with the relevance of patient-generated health data from wearable health technology and smartphones. But as the market continues to grow, finding ways to store, share, and use data from patients with chronic conditions, elderly patients, wellness programs, and from remote patient monitoring will be a key interoperability issue. Yet, many health systems lack interfaces that can interact with the emerging technology.

Creating fuller health records that can gather this medical information, and also payment and behavioral information, is a future application that requires more layers of interoperability, says Leroy Jones, CEO of GSI Health, a cloud-based healthcare software company. "Other information that is important to the care plan, such as behavioral health and psychosocial information is not the same nature as medical information. Integrating this information into new sources is an emerging challenge," Jones says.

3. New partnerships that increase complexities

As larger hospital systems acquire smaller practices, getting all of the IT systems to work together can be a budget buster, says Beverly Crisler, director of service delivery for Peak 10 Atlanta data centers. "When IT staff is figuring out how to integrate records into a larger system, it can be time consuming. These systems include scheduling, call center management, and possibly paper records. It can be cumbersome, but it's a necessary part of an acquisition that isn't always considered," she says.

Crisler suggests a thorough audit of a potential acquisition's IT system--not just by the CIO, but a taskforce that includes IT staff and system users. "It doesn't need to be intrusive, but you need to know what you are buying before signing the dotted line."

Crisler says an interoperability game plan with a reasonable timetable should be a crucial part of the buying decision. "The CIO can have a business conversation about the areas of concern and ways to respond. The more IT staff is involved in acquisitions, the better for practitioners and patients," Crisler says.

Source: Managed Healthcare (View full article)

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Mismatched: How Patient Identification Errors Are Costing Patients And Health Systems

Nov 29, 2017

Imagine two patients with the same last name, admitted for separate ailments at the same hospital. One is mistakenly treated with a medication intended for the other patient--and has a serious reaction to the drug. Patient mix-ups are all-too-frequent occurrences at many hospitals across the U.S., leading to redundant tests, wrong diagnoses, incorrect treatment services and unnecessary hospitalizations - while increasing costs.

The ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization reviewed 7,600 wrong-patient events over a 32-month timeframe - voluntarily reported by 181 health organizations. Of these mix-ups, most were caught early, but 9 percent resulted in death or harm to the patient.

A similar study from the RAND Corporation found that health providers duplicate patient records on average 8 percent of the time. Patient misidentification costs hospitals an average of $17.4 million each year in denied claims. Furthermore, physicians treating the whole patient along a care continuum require more than a snapshot of a visit or sparsely detailed record. They need access to a person's full medical history including diagnoses, medical images, lab results, procedures, family background and medication history. To make on-the-spot decisions for accurate diagnoses and sensible treatment plans, care providers must know the right information about the right patient. Outcomes depend on it.

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Improving Outcomes: A Solution

Mismatches jeopardize patient safety and care outcomes. A national system that assigned a unique patient identifier to each patient would streamline the identification process, reduce errors and cut costs. The ideal system would join medical records from disparate providers and care settings linking all relevant information.

A main, referential database would serve as a safe, accurate and continually updated repository that improved matching technology of patient records. The aggregated data would give patients, hospitals, insurers, physician practices and pharmacies the confidence of seeing the whole picture of the whole patient: the correct patient.

Some government-run national health systems abroad have turned to unique or universal identifiers to solve many of their medical errors challenges. In Great Britain, every patient gets a National Health Service Number. Both Australia and Singapore have implemented their own health ID programs. The U.S., where the incidence of medical identity theft continues to rise, could also benefit from the safety and protection of an identifier system.

About 86 percent of providers have witnessed or have known of a medical error due to misidentification. Are you one of them? For the safety of patients, there needs to be a plan in place to prevent such errors from occurring again.

Source: Health IT Outcomes (View full article)

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US falling behind in 'race' to develop, utilize AI

Nov 28, 2017

Businessman and entrepreneur Mark Cuban said he believes artificial intelligence is going to "change everything, 180 degrees" during the next few decades, according to Yahoo Finance.

Mr. Cuban said he agrees with the notion AI will definitely change how businesses operate -- so much so that whichever industrialized country fails to take the lead in AI will be out of luck.

"All these things have happened that have changed how we do business, changed how we lived our lives, changed everything, right, the internet. But what we're going to see with artificial intelligence dwarfs all of that," Mr. Cuban said during an interview for Real Vision Television, a subscription financial video service cited by Yahoo Finance.

"Vladimir Putin says the winner in AI controls the world. China puts together a future plan saying whoever dominates in AI -- and they're subsidizing Tencent, Alibaba, et cetera, right? It is a race. We cut our Office of Technology and Science to one person who was an assistant to Peter Thiel. That's where we stand," Mr. Cuban continued.

Mr. Cuban said he invested in a robotics company to learn more about the technology and understand the industrial changes that will come as a result.

"I'm not saying [AI] a good thing for a bad thing. [The AI revolution] is going to happen with or without me. But I wanted to learn what's going on," he said. "Those building up a robotics industry here, investing in our AI industry here, that's the new infrastructure. Because if we don't do it, and China or Russia win those wars ... We're out of luck."

Source: Becker's Hospital Review (View full article)

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Five ways to reduce healthcare administrative costs

Nov 28, 2017

Administrative costs make up about 15% of all healthcare expenditures--well over $300 billion annually, according to the 2016 index report from the California Association for Healthcare Quality. Outdated, manual processes and rejected claims eat up a large portion of this cost.

The key to reducing administrative costs lies in refining these processes and changing with the times, according to industry leaders. Here are five strategies to consider implementing at your organization.

Digitize processes, verify benefits

One of the biggest drains on healthcare is the administrative cost associated with the revenue cycle. Minor mistakes associated with benefit verification, denial management, and claims resubmission can become very costly.

Streamline physician work flow

Happy workers make successful workplaces, and it goes without saying that recent changes in healthcare have increased the administrative burden on clinicians. Helping them streamline their work flow will increase efficiencies and savings, says Jay Anders, MD, chief medical officer at Medicomp Systems, a medical device manufacturer and developer.

Use digital engagement solutions

Jean Drouin, MD, MBA, CEO, and cofounder of the healthcare analytics firm Clarify Health Solutions, says payers and providers are facing the question: How do we create more effective and efficient care models that deliver the same or better outcomes at lower costs?

"The private physician will now make more if he or she steps the patient down as fast as possible," Drouin says. "Longer stays means higher costs, and if costs are higher than allowed in that period, the physician will be penalized. In order to change the behavior, we need to be providing far more patient and physician level data so clinicians are able to make better choices and reward them for making those choices."

Open communication to let data flow

Mark Martin, director of payer and vendor services at Availity, says interactions between plans and providers have gone from bad to worse during the transition to value-based reimbursements. "The communication between health plans and providers is archaic, and for the most part that just leads to just bad communication back and forth," he says.

Outsource with purpose

Anand Natampalli, vice president of global business development for the business process management firm HGS, says outsourcing allows certain processes to be completed by outside experts--leaving health systems to focus on patient care.

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Source: Managed Healthcare Executive (View full article)

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The IT Transformation Health Care Needs

Nov 28, 2017

In the mid-1990s, everyone knew that health care organizations across the United States were plagued by wasteful spending. The question for Intermountain Healthcare, which serves residents of Utah and Idaho, was where to start looking for savings internally. Data analyses quickly identified the most promising targets: 104 of the 1,440 clinical conditions that Intermountain treated accounted for 95% of the care it provided, and two services--newborn delivery and treatment of ischemic heart disease--accounted for 21% of its work.

So how can health care organizations realize the promise of their large and growing investments in IT to help lower costs and improve patient outcomes? While substantial attention has been paid to the potential medical benefits of new technologies such as inexpensive genetic screening, artificial intelligence, and wearable sensors that continuously monitor vital signs, our main focus is on how the organizations that deliver care can get much more out of their recent or planned investments in enterprisewide IT systems.

Our research on the ways health care could apply the experiences of other industries suggests that instead of viewing IT as a transactional tool for billing, monitoring, and error checking, organizations should embrace it as an instrument to help transform the way they deliver medical care. This will entail prioritizing quality improvement over cost cutting, making data collection easier and better, turning the data into actionable information for clinicians, and forging new operating and business models. We have found that while numerous health care organizations are moving in this direction, the majority are not making the holistic changes needed for transformation.

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Source: Harvard Business Review (View full Article)

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NTT DATA Announces New Enterprise Imaging Platform Based on Analytics

Nov 27, 2017

NTT DATA Services, a recognized leader in global technology services, today announced the company's new Unified Clinical Analytics and Management Platform. The platform is designed to integrate imaging analytics in the workflows of clinical teams and radiologists to meet the new standards of value-based care requirements in the healthcare imaging industry.

"Market changes in reimbursement for quality and risk sharing, as well as growing pressure on imaging utilization, are propelling organizations to take a fresh look at their enterprise imaging strategy," said Barron Lang, vice president of healthcare and life sciences for NTT DATA Services. "With this platform, we are delivering insights and solutions for institutions focused on providing better patient care and health, improving quality and growing topline revenue by identifying the missing x-factor in the value delivery equation."

Through the company's existing partnerships with Zebra Medical Vision, Imbio and other algorithm providers, NTT DATA Services has integrated imaging research tools to deliver this new vendor-neutral platform.

The Unified Clinical Analytics and Management Platform has the ability to:

Integrate a reporting tool in any picture archiving and communication system (PACS) workstation with annotated iconic images for guidance
Drop images into a desktop engine that allows specific AI algorithms to execute locally without additional hardware
Integrate reports into dictation solutions to provide annotated series as well as digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) structured reports into the vendor neutral archive (VNA) and PACS

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