Harnessing Healthcare Data to Create Actionable Information

SAN DIEGO—Data is becoming an important asset to health care providers, including real estate owners. This trend is part of a larger movement within the healthcare space in which demographic, economic and technological changes are reshaping everything, from its delivery to its funding models, from education to scientific innovation and from the role of the physician to the role of pharmaceutical companies, payors and patients, according to an inaugural healthcare trends report from Stanford Medicine.

Like the rest of the world, the report said that health care is becoming increasingly connected but also increasingly complex, which poses both an opportunity and a challenge. “Whether it is health wearables or on-demand testing, better hospital software or algorithms capable of catching disease more effectively, rapid change is taking place,” Stanford University School of Medicine dean Lloyd Minor says.

The reason for this, he said, is the increased access to big data and advanced data analytics. “If this continues – and we firmly believe it will – doctors will need to learn new skill sets that, in turn, will require changes to education and learning.”

Property owners and operators are embracing this trend as well for similar reasons.

“There is value in the data we can collect,” according to Robert Kramer, NIC founder and strategic advisor, speaking at the recent NIC Spring Conference here in San Diego.

According to Kramer, using data in senior housing properties “will allow us to manage healthcare conditions properly and help with reduced hospitalization and will enable people to live longer and healthier in our setting.”

David Nash, founding dean emeritus of the College of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University, said in an opening general session at the event that “the future is all about data.” He added that whichever operators can take that data and put it into actionable information will win.

“Data has power and includes things like social determinants, housing and more,” Nash said. And while data is one thing, you need actionable information, he added.

“You need to harness that data to create actionable information,” Nash explained.

Dan Lindh, president and CEO of Presbyterian Homes & Services also said at the NIC event that his company is already using data in a number of ways. “We are using data to keep our activities focused, we look to reduce ER visits and we use data to measure why those ER visits happen.”

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