Population Health Research and Disease Management – The Frontier (Part 5)

With automation , digitization of data and the arrival of Information Technology , Healthcare industry has been trying to adopt the change. Though conservative in its approach compared to other industries, the adoption is in progress for sure. This is more so in US ,because of the regulatory requirement of the HITECH act , Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA) , Meaningful Use (MU) mandate and US Healthcare reforms to make it cost effective. One must note here that, in more “Socialized” form of Medicine as practiced in UK and Canada , the adoption of Health IT has been last 15 years , when digitization of health records took place (EHR and EMR) One other aspect of this adoption of Health IT is the huge volume of data that is generated from Clinical , Biomedical and genetic research , particularly the Human Genome Project. This has moved the Health industry from “Subjective Clinical Decision Making based on Experience” to the “Evidence based Medicine” (EBM) The complexities of Processes and the huge amount of healthcare research data has made adoption of computers , technology and automation almost a requirement more than the regulatory pressure. This is likely to decrease clinical errors , avoid unnecessary medication and diagnostic testing, streamline processes to make delivery of healthcare more efficient, personalize therapies based on evidence based practice and should decrease the cost of healthcare in long run. One important benefit of this adoption of Health IT is that the quality of care to patients has improved and so has the quality of Medical Research. This is likely to help in accountability in the domain of Clinical and Healthcare industry. The cons and challenges of this adoption, in early phases, is likely to be in the areas like Health data safety , privacy , interoperability among payers and providers of healthcare services.  “Data” has always been the core of every industry, more so in Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry , has been a “King”.. it is likely to become the “Supreme Leader” now ! The Business Process Re-Engineering and Change Management in Healthcare sector is in full swing with people engaged in turning their “As is” system to “To be” system equipped to handle processes , data , regulators in a cost effective and efficient way all centered around “Patient” ( Patient Centric Healthcare ). A new “Healthcare-Ecosystem” is more digital now ! (Note: This is all more true with US Healthcare System) This implementation of technology in Healthcare Industry is bringing about impact in following areas and creating huge business opportunities for IT , Analytics, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industries to work in collaboration for a big chunk of Money : Three key areas where Healthcare System is experiencing major change are: 1) Processes : The clinical work flows in small practices , Providers, Accountable Care Organizations ( ACOs) , Small – Medium and Large Hospitals, Referral centers.  CPOE  (Computerized Physician Order Entry) and Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDS) with inbuilt protocols for inclusion and exclusion criteria linked to drugs , disease and other databases (Clinical Intelligence Systems) 2) The Data : Most of the processes would be data driven , based on rules ( Business Intelligence or BI ) with data arriving from various sources like : Devices , Databases , Registries and real time sources like Healthapps (mHealth) from the IoT (Internet of Things) 3) The Finance : Payers , Providers , HMOs and ACOs would be looking at Analytics dashboards to make their data “work” with their efficient “processes” and “people” to be visible in the bottom line every quarterly ! The Healthcare Industry is on the threshold of new beginning , poised to leverage the Information and Technology revolution. Telemedicine and TeleHealth are already practiced in big way and is helping the urban as well as rurual population The Pharmaceutical Industry is in for a big change too , with Biotech tools , vaccines , the “Biomarkers” like SNPs and the huge Medical and Health data (Big Data) that would be available , the cost of Medical Research and Drug (therapy) Development is sure to come down especially with Adaptive Clinical Trials. The new Diagnostics industry would be booming soon with rapid cost effective biotech tools like whole genome assays ! One should not be surprised to see young parents ordering a “Whole Genome Assay” of their new born (“Genome Patri ” in a way similar to birth chart or birth horoscope of old times) to predict his/her health future ! Analytics in Healthcare seems to be the biggest market in future , driven by IoT , mHealth giving a value addition to all the stake holders of capital market and patients alike. While this happens ,a new breed of professionals is emerging .. the Clinical Data Scientists .. a data scientist with expertise in Clinical domain.  This might be the  “sexiest” profession in next generation !