| |September 201719CIOReview CXO INSIGHTSealthcare delivery as a whole, with all its technological advances in patient care, has seemingly been inattentive in applying advanced analytics onto the endless amounts of data being collected. Historically, one could argue that healthcare data was difficult to access. It resided within paper charts with unintelligible provider handwriting. For instance, laboratory results were often printed, faxed, hand copied, and stapled into these same charts. During my medical training, charts at times even had scrapes of paper with reminders and notes tucked in for quick reference during office visits. Culling any useful population analysis from this haphazard process proved to be nearly impossible. But it wasn't without trying. Academic centers and countless researchers have devoted thousands upon thousands of hours abstracting information from charts. The focus of these research projects often conformed to a data definitions standard that were researcher or project specific. Thus, it rarely had an impact at the population level. At Sanford Health, a $4+ billion integrated healthcare delivery system in the upper Midwest, our goal in analytics is not only to improve our internal operational and clinical care processes but to, more importantly, improve the health of the population and communities we serve. Please don't get me wrong, Sanford Health has moved to leverage data and analytics in the traditional way. This foundation is the basis for our analytics innovation. Our analytics team, named Enterprise Data and Analytics, has brought together functional and operational expertise that were traditionally siloed across our six-state geographic footprint. In doing so, we have centralized and standardized the approach to data, from the request process to the data and analytic output. This was a vital first step given our large rural geography. Additionally, we have established a resilient data warehouse plan. Contrary to our history of having multiple data silos, whether clinical, operational, or financial, we have intentionally brought data together through virtualization. This foundation lends itself to not just accurate representation of data but outputs that are consistent and reproducible, regardless of the end user or the analyst. This platform also allows us to anticipate future data and analytics needs, crucial in the era of fast moving data from personal health devices and social media feeds. Lastly, we have created a robust data governance structure. In doing so, we now have a common language across our four major regional centers and 40+ critical access hospitals. Strategic decisions that cross multiple function and geographic re g i on s Crowd Sourcing for Healthcare InnovationBy Benson Hsu, VP-Data and Analytics, Sanford HealthH
< Page 9 | Page 11 >