Lack of Data-Sharing Continues To Hinder Healthcare’s Progress

We know the right healthcare data, used meaningfully, can ensure patients receive the right care at the right time, help avoid unnecessary duplication of services, and prevent medical errors. Data can also help lower readmission rates and, as a result, healthcare spending. Despite this evidence for powerful outcomes, communities are often stuck at the first step: a lack of data-sharing.

Where is the bottleneck? Every hospital, clinic and other healthcare operation generates a massive amount of data. However, a recent survey found fever than 4 in 10 health systems successfully share data with other systems. Additionally, only slightly more than two-thirds of technology executives at U.S. hospitals and health systems are effectively sharing data within their own organizations. One hurdle includes a lack of clear direction from leadership. Healthcare leaders need to be specific with their teams about not just the need for connecting data, but the use cases and value for sharing internally and externally and generating insights from raw information. Data is critical to the goals of very healthcare leader — but is it being treated as such?

Read the article by Dolores Green, CEO of the Inland Empire Foundation for Medical Care, Executive Director of the Riverside County Medical Association, and member of the Manifest MedEx, in Modern Healthcare.