At the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2016 Conference, I heard dozens of companies talk about how they’re going to change healthcare with big data, my company included. My question is now: How do we make this happen when the quality of data is not reliable and there aren't platforms that deliver it with accuracy and efficiency?
For the past few years, I have personally focused on the problem of fixing, updating and validating inaccurate provider directories, as the information that sites have about doctors is not always correct. The healthcare community currently lacks a technological process that can periodically clean, update and push out doctor information changes online. In a highly regulated industry like healthcare, this is a problem, one that insurance companies are now legally obligated to tackle.
Companies in the healthcare industry have a unique opportunity to make progress on issues like these if we can build platforms that leverage metadata to navigate our complex industry. Here are three ways we can move the needle: build real-time platforms, leverage metadata to measure data quality, and open our application program interfaces (APIs) to increase data quality.
Design Software Architecture for Real-Time Platforms From the Beginning
Healthcare companies understand that collaboration is the key to increasing data quality and decreasing costs. What's missing is software architecture that supports real-time data updates where people search for doctors. This data-driven approach to doctor directories needs to be part of the design process from the very beginning.
We should start by standardizing data attributes. In the case of my industry, these are the elements of provider directories: doctor names, whether they're taking new patients, and other demographic information. Everyone looking for a doctor will see this data -- details about doctors, health plans, and consumers -- so it’s necessary to build a system that allows this information to be constantly refreshed.
Once we have agreed-upon data attributes, we can design software architecture and independent modules to satisfy the need for real-timeliness. Interfaces should combine these components in clearly operable ways that promote data reliability. Most important, there shouldn’t be hacks around these interfaces, as they're paramount to service-oriented architecture (SOA). When you have a defined interface, you can guarantee uniform and scalable use of the services you provide.
Collaborate for Lower Costs
I’ve come to see that collaboration in the health space is extremely valuable; working with different players in healthcare has created opportunities to share and lower all of our costs. Today, I have the pleasure of working with companies like Blue Shield of California, Anthem, and Humana, among others, who participate in a project we call the BetterData Alliance. As project participants, we work with America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and health-plan members to create platforms that we can all continuously update and validate doctor data to get the right information in front of consumers on a real-time basis.
What I think the industry needs is for companies to build real-time, collaborative platforms to help everyone process and update changes quickly. This can help decrease the lag time between doctors' changes and patients' awareness that currently plagues our system. With less lag time, data decay rates will drop and data quality will increase. Building collaboration into our technology can help solve for numerous issues in the healthcare space.
Leverage Metadata to Improve the Quality of Data
An important aspect of this data puzzle is to be transparent about where the data comes from. The healthcare community has tons of data but lacks meta information, making subsequent processing of data complicated and unreliable. But the situation isn’t all bleak, as we can start together highlighting the importance of metadata to discern what is quality data and what is not.
For example, when we give validated data to our partners, we use metadata to help them understand where our data comes from (and who edited it) so we do not pollute their data further. We create better systems of information and communication by being honest about the sources of data, and therefore enable companies to deliver accurate information to their consumers.
Once we all understand what metadata we have and use it to determine data quality, we can let that insight flow through modern APIs.
Going Forward
Delivering products in a highly regulated industry is challenging, especially when inaccurate data derails the quality of the service you provide. Building real-time data platforms with continuously refreshed metadata can strengthen the credibility of data for everyone. Regulatory compliance with new data-quality laws will naturally follow when these transparent systems are created to share data.
