The Current Tech Induced Healthcare Landscape
Vivek Rajagopal, Head - Medha Analytics, Narayana Health, 0
What are your views on analytics and artificial intelligence in healthcare?
Analytics and artificial intelligence can radically transform the healthcare industry. Several indicators point towards the industry being at the cusp of this transformation. One of the main indicators is the plethora of work that’s going on in the health-tech space resulting in more and more data getting captured. The amount of data getting captured around healthcare delivery is easily 5-10 times of what was captured just a couple of years back. Every stream and sector around healthcare is part of this data explosion. To name a few health insurance, managed care, home care, wearables, online pharmacies, online consultation apps, health registries, health record management apps, and many more. Another indicator is the exponential growth in big data and cloud technologies that now make integration and analysis of humongous volumes of data possible and even in near real-time.
Tell us about the technologies used for data analytics, and innovation happening in the field of healthcare? How is technology helping in financial analysis frameworks?
As with any other industry, the big data technologies are powering the data analytics workload in the backend, while interoperability and analysis delivery are focus areas. With several different data capture systems working around healthcare, interoperability or quick integration becomes a key challenge in deriving holistic insights and a complete view of the healthcare system. There are several standards available for healthcare providers to adopt. However, the transition is not very easy. The ongoing work in developing tools and technologies that allow easy integration and standardization of healthcare data is an interesting and a much-needed innovation.
The security, privacy and sensitivity concerns associated with healthcare data creates another challenge in the form of allowing data aggregation from several health systems to build models that are truly trained on diverse and ample population data. A key innovation to solve this challenge is the advent of federated learning or distributed learning platforms. This allows data to reside within the health-systems while allowing AI/ML models to still tap them for learning purposes. The integration happens at the intermediate results level rather than at the data level.
How does business intelligence enable providing better healthcare facility? What should be the approach for creating a profitable business strategy in healthcare without causing disruption in healthcare facility?
Business Intelligence can bring high efficiency in healthcare. The complexity of operations in a healthcare provider results in tens of departments within each hospital managing their own areas. The communication and data sharing are not seamless, resulting in sub-optimal business processes which further cascade to higher costs of healthcare delivery. Good BI systems can
help in anomaly detection at all levels with near realtime alerts to the concerned departments. This can help address inefficiencies as soon as they start to surface. In addition, BI systems can also measure and predict volumes, patient flows and turnaround times at every station in a hospital, thereby helping in process improvements and resource planning. Well implemented BI systems have the potential to significantly improve clinical quality and throughput as well, in addition to help delivering a better overall patient experience at a much lower cost of care
How can the healthcare business model be sustainable? What are the advantages of technology in safe healthcare practices?
The rapid digital transformation of the healthcare industry will make the healthcare business efficient and effective at the same time. Increased data capture in standardized formats and the ability to analyze them will result in high clinical consistency and a much better preventive healthcare model. This will result in lesser hospitalizations and quicker discharges, thereby allowing for better utilization of the currently stressed health infrastructure and resources. Preventive care will also result in lesser healthcare expenditure for families as well as the economy. The reach of healthcare is already getting scaled exponentially with the large-scale adoption of remote consultations and remote monitoring technologies.
Tell us about the real time decision making and predictive analytics in healthcare? How are these technologies creating hassle-free operation in healthcare?
Real-time decision making and predictive analytics systems can guide the healthcare provider along the implementation of clinical pathways for their patients. This can help in consistency of care across providers, elimination of unnecessary medications/ tests/procedures, quicker & accurate decisions, and findings. It can help in better triaging of patients in the health system, resulting in a highly efficient deployment of healthcare resources. Real-time stratification of high-risk patients can be invaluable in reducing mortality and morbidity. While we talk about the use of predictive analytics in real-time decision making, it is important for us to also acknowledge the role of remote monitoring tools that are prevalent today. While they don’t fall into the ambit of analytics, they allow doctors to monitor ICU patients round the clock as against the stipulated time window every day, thereby increasing patient safety manifold.
Please conclude with factors influencing better healthcare facilities for children and adults because of technology.
There are three major factors to continuously improve in healthcare. The reach of care, the quality of care, and the cost of care. Digitization and analytics are positively disrupting all three aspects which will result in much safer healthcare systems that are available at a fraction of the current healthcare spend. This is not just a possibility today, but also a necessity, considering that with close to $8 trillion is spent every year on healthcare, less than 50 percent of the global population have access to reasonable healthcare facilities. We believe that these numbers will change very favourably over the next 10 years as a direct result of the digital transformation of the healthcare industry.
BI Systems Can Also Measure And Predict Volumes, Patient Flows And Turnaround Times At Every Station In A Hospital, Thereby Helping In Process Improvements And Resource Planning
How can the healthcare business model be sustainable? What are the advantages of technology in safe healthcare practices?
The rapid digital transformation of the healthcare industry will make the healthcare business efficient and effective at the same time. Increased data capture in standardized formats and the ability to analyze them will result in high clinical consistency and a much better preventive healthcare model. This will result in lesser hospitalizations and quicker discharges, thereby allowing for better utilization of the currently stressed health infrastructure and resources. Preventive care will also result in lesser healthcare expenditure for families as well as the economy. The reach of healthcare is already getting scaled exponentially with the large-scale adoption of remote consultations and remote monitoring technologies.
Tell us about the real time decision making and predictive analytics in healthcare? How are these technologies creating hassle-free operation in healthcare?
Real-time decision making and predictive analytics systems can guide the healthcare provider along the implementation of clinical pathways for their patients. This can help in consistency of care across providers, elimination of unnecessary medications/ tests/procedures, quicker & accurate decisions, and findings. It can help in better triaging of patients in the health system, resulting in a highly efficient deployment of healthcare resources. Real-time stratification of high-risk patients can be invaluable in reducing mortality and morbidity. While we talk about the use of predictive analytics in real-time decision making, it is important for us to also acknowledge the role of remote monitoring tools that are prevalent today. While they don’t fall into the ambit of analytics, they allow doctors to monitor ICU patients round the clock as against the stipulated time window every day, thereby increasing patient safety manifold.
Please conclude with factors influencing better healthcare facilities for children and adults because of technology.
There are three major factors to continuously improve in healthcare. The reach of care, the quality of care, and the cost of care. Digitization and analytics are positively disrupting all three aspects which will result in much safer healthcare systems that are available at a fraction of the current healthcare spend. This is not just a possibility today, but also a necessity, considering that with close to $8 trillion is spent every year on healthcare, less than 50 percent of the global population have access to reasonable healthcare facilities. We believe that these numbers will change very favourably over the next 10 years as a direct result of the digital transformation of the healthcare industry.