Starting digital transformation? Focus on the cultural changes
With the implementation of electronic health records and other healthcare information systems, there has been explosive growth in the amount of data captured by provider organizations.
Just as these provider organizations must prudently manage their talent pools, financial resources and medical assets to fully extract value from data, the organizations must manage data as a strategic asset, said Dr. Ferdinand Velasco, senior vice president and chief health information officer at Texas Health Resources, a faith-based health system based in Arlington that was awarded the HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award for Excellence in 2013 and has achieved Stage 7 on the HIMSS EMR Adoption Model.
“This involves implementing sound enterprise data management, advancing data analytics maturity and promoting a data-driven culture,” said Velasco. “While much of the clinical informatics and business intelligence domains have focused on the technical aspects of data management and analytics, we feel that there hasn’t been enough focus on the cultural changes associated with digital business transformation.”
The importance of the cultural changes associated with digital business transformation has to do with two industry trends, according to Velasco: the emergence of Big Data in healthcare and the transformation of the healthcare delivery model.
“While both topics have received considerable coverage in the media, they’re not usually discussed in tandem, as two trends that complement each other,” he explained. “Consider what has been occurring in other industries such as retail, entertainment and transportation. In each of these, Big Data has been exploited by new entrants to disrupt the ecosystem and displace legacy firms that previously dominated the marketplace.”
Companies such as Amazon and Uber that didn’t even exist until the digital age are now formidable players. An advantage these “digital natives” have over established firms is that they’re equipped, both technically and culturally, to effectively harness data in near real time, transforming it into actionable insights, and to make agile, data-driven decisions. In contrast, analog companies are characterized by decision making that tends to be laborious and informed by incomplete or old data, Dr. Velasco contended.
“The same phenomenon is happening in healthcare,” he said. “We are seeing new entrants as well as established healthcare organizations that are seeking to reinvent themselves into nimble, data-driven organizations. As with other industries, healthcare also has experienced a massive growth in data, not just from clinical workflows and financial transactions but from the consumer side, as well.”
In addition to the data captured from EHRs and billing systems, healthcare organizations need to cope with data from technologies such as genetic testing and wearable devices. Through efforts to improve population health, there is a greater appreciation for social determinants of health such as housing, transportation and physical activity.
