Why Data-Driven Solutions are Important in Healthcare?

Why Data-Driven Solutions are Important in Healthcare?

Data is slowly replacing today’s commodities in the market. The usage of data by organizations is almost transformative now. It affects how customers and organizations engage as well as markets and big data solutions. They are simply insights organizations need to better their performance and profits. This also applies to the healthcare industry with many added benefits like improving systems for patients, healthcare providers, and institutions. Data-driven solutions can have many positive effects on the healthcare industry, here are some of them:

Privacy and Security

Cybercrime is an ever-existing part of online data. The frequency of such attempts has only increased in the last few years. Evidently, this is bad news as the security of medical data is of utmost priority. Breaches in this data can appear as manipulation of data that results in fatal outcomes- wrong treatment decisions, patient insurance abuse, exposure of personal data, etc.

For big data to make headway into healthcare assurance must be provided about the privacy and security of personal patient information. This issue calls for privacy-preserving data mining to fully benefit from big data whilst also ensuring the upkeep of privacy policies.

However, this doesn’t mean that big data cannot be used in such fields. In fact, this is the perfect time to integrate big data solutions into healthcare. As the healthcare sector can readily learn from mistakes made by other industries and move forward with more impactful solutions than ever before.

Accessibility to Patient Data

For years the healthcare data management system has been catering to the healthcare providers, leaving the patients in the dark. It is not uncommon for patients to not have access to their medical records. Some institutes have even resorted to making the patient pay or the data they have created themselves.

This has become a severe hindrance nowadays. Not only does this practice prevent the patient from easily switching between healthcare providers but it also excludes the patient from actively participating in their treatment plans.

With data-driven healthcare, a patient will have easy access to their medical records which will reduce the overall admin burden on the hospital and the cost burden on the patient.[i] Additionally, with access to their data patient-physician interaction will become more harmonious.

Application in Preventive Care

Big data application also plays a great role in adopting a preventive care approach. This approach of healthcare calls for catching the disease before it starts showing symptoms. The best way to bring this into practice is by collecting automated real-time data and increasing patient participation in their healthcare plan.

Devices and mobile applications such as Fitbit, and SamsungHealth are a great initiative towards this approach[ii]. It has many benefits like reaching out to a large population to achieve real-time recommendations to slow down the spread of infectious disease. Additionally, these devices can be programmed to provide real-time data to not only the patient but also the healthcare provider paving the way for home monitoring solutions.

At SofTx Innovations, our product aids the transition of traditional healthcare systems to cloud-based, centralized, cost-effective, and portable solutions. We understand the need of integrating big data into healthcare to provide real-time seamless information to both healthcare provider and receiver to provide the highest level of patient care.

[i] https://www.aidoc.com/blog/data-driven-healthcare/

[ii] https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/article/21/2_suppl/14/5926449

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