In Healthcare, Connected Data Drives Holistic Patient Care

Providing high-quality patient care is a team effort. Data is what enables healthcare professionals to understand the full scope of issues patients are facing, share diagnostic data, and coordinate care across providers to ensure the best quality treatment recommendations and follow-up care. Over the past decade, healthcare companies have drastically expanded their use of technology both in the direct care of patients and in the management of healthcare operations. When the technology works and the data is flowing, great things can happen. When the technology is disjointed, the effects can be deadly.

Realtime Data is Essential for Making Critical Healthcare Decisions

Whether it is a clinician waiting for test results, an administrator coordinating insurance coverage, or a pharmacy distributing medications – in healthcare, real-time data is essential. Centralized patient records systems have made a tremendous impact on providers’ ability to share information. However, there are still many independent data sources, records management systems, and 3^rd party interfaces that slow down the overall healthcare process. Delays in sharing data not only slow the pace of care for patients but also lower the efficiency of clinicians (meaning they see fewer patients) and increase the risk of errors in diagnosis and treatment. These are the reasons why healthcare companies are placing an intense focus on connected data, interoperability of systems, and real-time data-sharing upgrades to their IT systems.

Sharing Data With Government Organizations and Health Networks

The government and health networks play an essential role in orchestrating data sharing between hospitals, independent providers, and pharmacies. The goals of data sharing are twofold.

First is ensuring the best patient care possible. If a patient from Iowa seeks medical attention care while on vacation in Florida, the treating physician and pharmacy need to be able to receive electronic medical records (EMR) from the patient’s primary care doctor and any specialists they have received treatment from to ensure the appropriate treatment is provided. Pharmacies need the ability to check drug interactions for new prescriptions to avoid adverse reactions that could be fatal.

The second reason data orchestration and interoperability across healthcare networks is important is healthcare monitoring. Government organizations play a significant role in tracking infectious diseases (like COVID-19), drug reactions, and other situations that could impact either public health or the safety of various treatments during clinical trials. This data orchestration is often coordinated centrally but implemented by individual hospitals and clinics within their patient care management systems.  In addition to centralized monitoring, the data that is collected is made available to clinicians as a source of research – helping them understand what other providers are seeing, how they are treating various conditions, and the efficacy of those treatments.

How a Data Integration Platform Enables Better Healthcare

The one thing healthcare companies care most about is providing the best care possible for their patients. It doesn’t matter if you are looking at a hospital, private clinic, insurance company, device manufacturer, drug manufacturer, or pharmacy. Patient care is job #1. Actian DataConnect is a data integration platform that enables companies to connect anything, anytime, anywhere. Healthcare companies are using DataConnect to aggregate data from their diagnostic equipment, share test results and imaging across departments, access government data for research, and engage with 3^rd party insurance companies and pharmacies. Leveraging a data integration platform, these companies can optimize operations, improve the productivity of clinicians, and provide better care to their patients. Actian DataConnect delivers a consistent and secure way to manage and control the flow of data across your organization – ensuring the right people have access to the right data at the right time.

To learn more about healthcare industry solutions from Actian, visit https://www.actian.com/solutions/by-industry/healthcare/

About Traci Curran

Traci Curran serves as Director of Product Marketing at Actian focused on the Actian Data Platform. With more than 20 years of experience in technology marketing, Traci has previously held senior marketing roles at CloudBolt Software, Racemi (acquired by DXC Corporation), as well as some of the world’s most innovative startups. Traci is passionate about helping customers understand how they can accelerate innovation and gain competitive advantage by leveraging digital transformation and cloud technologies.