As medical practices continue to adopt more sophisticated electronic health record (EHR) systems, the need for effective health data management is on the rise. Health data management is the process used to record, store, protect, and analyze data you obtain from different sources. Effective healthcare data management allows medical practices to develop a comprehensive view of a patient’s condition.
Good data management practices are vital to keeping pace with the huge volume of data produced by health facilities every month. They also help you give more personalized care, more effective communication, and compliance with regulatory requirements.
Benefits of Health Data Management
Proper data management is beneficial to the patient, care providers, and health insurers. It has far-reaching effects on the health of the entire population. Managing health data helps to:
- Create a complete view of a patient’s health through the integration of data collected from diverse sources
- Enhance patient engagement through predictive analysis and faster diagnosis based on available data
- Improves the ability to track trending health issues and predict an outbreak of a specific condition
- Provide data for effective business decision making that will improve the profitability of the health facility
- Improve disease management and comply with standardized care plans
- Boost patient engagement and increase brand loyalty
How to Manage Health Data Effectively
Here are some tips and ideas for managing all the data that flows through your facility.
1. Use Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) Tools
These tools are widely used for collecting and aggregating data in healthcare organizations. An EDW is designed to bring together data from diverse sources or systems into a single data repository. This makes it possible for users to carefully analyze data that existed in different systems like practice management systems, financial management software, and EHRs.
A well-designed EDW will enable you to:
- Design as many data collection forms as you want
- Build and use custom applications for data collection
- Capture custom lists and data hierarchies needed for reporting
- Collect data for medical research and improve the quality of care
2. Adopt Data Integration Strategies
Unstructured data can pose a serious challenge in your organization despite your use of electronic medical record (EMR) systems. However, you can use data integration tools to make your data more meaningful.
Effective healthcare data integration tools will:
- Aggregate data and files from different sources
- Give you access to both workflow and clinical data
- Simplify and automate complicated integration processes
Developers of integration tools also incorporate machine learning, application programming interfaces (APIs), and capacity to work with big data.
3. Work with Analytics Tools for Big Data
You can use big data analytics to meet increasing expectations from patients and make sense of the massive amount of data collected in your organization. The data includes all the medical, operational, and financial data flowing through each office in your facility.
With the help of business intelligence software, you can discover new ways to reduce costs and make your operations more efficient. The use of these applications in large healthcare organizations can save millions of dollars annually. The software can help you find services that are under-utilized and those that are very profitable. Then, you can make the needed changes to maximize the use of services that are in high demand.
Get Professional Help to Manage Your Healthcare Data
Call 877.522.8378 now to schedule a free consultation on how to manage your healthcare data effectively. We can supply all the tools you need and train your staff to use them efficiently.