Healthcare providers obtain data from many different sources: hospitals, doctors’ offices, laboratories and laboratory machines, medical equipment, pharmacies, etc. Investing in the right infrastructure for organizing everything correctly is crucial – but it's too rare.
A structured system of codified clinical data is essential to helping providers provide better patient care, while reducing administrative burdens and clinician burnout. This is not only a technical exercise, but also a strategic investment opportunity for healthcare organizations.
Why move data to the cloud?
Moving clinical data management to the cloud platform can bring countless benefits to healthcare organizations, including lower costs, enhanced security and scalability, clear clinical stories, and reduced clinician burnout.
Reduce costs – Traditional local systems require substantial investment in server hardware, cooling systems, and maintenance costs. Cloud migration reduces the need for these major capital expenditures rather than easier and more predictable operating expenses. Many sanitation systems also have redundant and outdated software tools that incur costs even if they are not used. Cloud platforms can help identify and eliminate these layoffs.
Scalable and secure systems – As the amount of clinical data expands, reducing or eliminating the need for hardware procurement and lengthy installation periods, cloud technology can automatically expand storage capacity. It also reduces the risk of disruption and delayed care. For example, after an unexpected event, such as a natural disaster, a cloud-enabled healthcare system will be prepared to meet the needs of the community. From conventional clinical workflows to the ability to surge in emergencies, they can scale as needed to handle different user loads. Cloud platforms also benefit from a wider support network. Instead of a single CIO or a small internal IT feature, they work around the world to ensure they are safe. As cybercriminals continue to target electronically protected health information (EPHI), security platforms with all-weather surveillance are crucial to mitigating cyber risks.
A clearer story – Store care-related data in the cloud allows providers to access records from multiple healthcare systems and data sources. Concentrating these records can make a more holistic patient story, which can help clinicians deliver better results. For example, imagine a patient who registered a patient with elevated blood pressure within five years. On the surface, this seems to be all the information needed for the diagnosis. However, if the provider can see that the patient's address has changed four times in the same time frame, it changes the story, which may indicate that the person is so frequent. With the complete situation, the provider can provide more tailored care advice.
Patient experience enhancement – Cautious and feasible data enables cloud technology to evaluate patient data and assist providers in making care decisions. For example, cloud systems can interpret insurance ratings and automated appointment reminders, thus freeing executives to create a more efficient and comfortable environment for patients visiting the office, especially for those who find visiting clinicians to care for clinicians. For the provider itself, the cloud can explain codes for conditions such as hypertension, thus reminding clinicians of high blood pressure. Even if the patient’s physical feelings in the year are not completely transparent, these codes can help with nursing interventions.
Construct value data
Beyond its many benefits, healthcare systems must also consider the efforts made to create efficient, codified data systems. It requires more than just a simple copy and paste into a spreadsheet. The healthcare system will need to obtain data, clean and standardize from multiple sources (EHR, diagnostic lab, pharmacy records, claims database) and then upload it to a unified system.
Given the complexity, organizations should think critically about the value streams they want to access and how records in the cloud platform fit into them before choosing to integrate. Some of the value streams that providers may choose include:
- Clinical information that can automatically resolve insurance company problems without personnel intervention
- Information that can be provided to patients or caregivers through an application or portal
- Nursing manager's algorithm that can be used to prioritize which patients follow up first
Identifying the right use cases for a given organization is critical to making a valuable investment in data management in the cloud. When exploring data infrastructure, healthcare organizations should also consider how to clean and standardize data, what skilled people are needed to build and manage the infrastructure, and how to handle security monitoring.
Clinical construction successful
Ultimately, migrating healthcare data to the cloud can support more powerful clinical operations and enhance patient care. Compared to on-premises systems, the cloud is flexible, cheaper, safer, easier to manage, and can scale rapidly with demand. The key to implementation is strategically building a platform to provide an overall view of patient data.
Photo: natali_mis, Getty Images
Jim Murray has over 25 years of experience in medical technology, leading the creation and implementation of solutions to improve quality, efficiency and holistic care. At BDO, JIM serves as managing director of the BDO Center for Healthcare Excellence and Innovation, which provides a combination of strategy, financial resilience, clinical operations management and digital transformation services, committed to helping providers improve their providers’ ability to provide high-quality care, enhance their patient experience and enhance their financial experience.
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