Since the advent of EHRs decades ago, healthcare providers have struggled with data interoperability issues, failing to fully connect patient information across systems. They may have an unlikely model to look to for improvement: the National Football League.
In a speech last week Forbes At the annual Healthcare Summit, NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sils noted that all 32 teams in the league report to the same EHR. He said having all this player data in one place would not only help the league treat injuries more effectively, but also prevent them from occurring.
“If we think about all the injuries that happen in sports, yes, some of them may be bad luck. Athletes accidentally collide, they accidentally hit the ground. But a portion of them – and we may not agree with the proportion – I think are preventable. If we understand the driver – if we understand the who, what, the causes and circumstances of these injuries, then these injuries are preventable,” Hills explained.
He said the NFL shares its player health data with a third-party epidemiological data science company, which provides insights that can help the league better understand the drivers of injuries.
It goes beyond sharing electronic medical record data, he noted.
“This is our game day thing – medical reports from 30 medical providers for every NFL game. This is equipment tracking. We tag all the helmets, cleats and shoulder pads that players wear. Every player wears a GPS tracking device so we know how fast they are moving, how far, where they are and the spatial relationships on the field. We have surface data, we have environmental data, we have engagement, we have video,” Sills declared.
In his view, this comprehensive data set allows the NFL to study injury mechanisms more rigorously than any other sports league.
He added that in this day and age, injury prevention efforts are multifaceted. They often require input from a variety of experts, including nutritionists, behavioral health specialists, exercise scientists, strength and conditioning coaches, performance staff and equipment managers.
For example, Sears said equipment staff played a vital role in developing concussion prevention programs through helmet testing and engineering. The NFL used video and engineering models to reconstruct more than 1,500 concussion events, mapping more than 150 variables to each event. This resulted in a testing system that ranks helmet models based on injury risk.
The league has also launched an education campaign to guide players toward safer helmets—98 percent of players now wear only high-security models, Sills noted.
American football has long been criticized as a dangerous and injury-prone sport, but he believes the NFL is fully capable of making the sport safer and more attractive. Hills believes that data interoperability will continue to play an important role in this regard as the league continues to innovate its rules, equipment and protocols.
Photo: Brian Allen, Getty Images
