Much like the Renaissance of the Middle Ages was a time of artistic, cultural, and economic rebirth, we’re entering a period of revolutionary innovation and change in the healthcare industry. I’ve begun to refer to it as the “Health Data Renaissance”

Powered by the emergence of digital health, compounding data, AI, machine learning, cloud compute and rich virtual collaboration, everyone including medical professionals, researchers and patients can benefit from new ways of learning and interacting that create substantially better health outcomes.

The renaissance goes beyond interoperability
We ditched manila folders for the EHR decades ago, thus we have treasure troves of personalized, digital health data. And as technology plays a greater part in our health and wellness, more health data is created every day. So great, we have a ton of data, but the goal has never been to create the world’s largest database. To realize the potential of our data and improve treatments, healthcare, and patient outcomes we must get data out of siloes, format it, pair it and analyze it optimally with security.

This sort of data interoperability was a Herculean task until recently. But technology has pushed us past the high hurdle of data interoperability and is powering research to help discover cures for everything from cancers to ALS to Alzheimer’s. It’s also powering leaps in precision medicine, condition management and population health. Here are some examples of what the Health Data Renaissance enables:

#1 example: Faster drug discovery, R&D, and time to market. Data and AI and digital transformation can help R&D teams evaluate and decide which molecules to start with for a new drug development. They can also quickly identify good companies and candidates for clinical trials , along with the best markets in which to run the trials. The clinical trials process itself can be orchestrated in the cloud, with the help of digital and virtual monitoring, and multiple trials could be done simultaneously with “digital twin” capability. The Health Data Renaissance can mean more lives saved by faster development of new medications.

#2 example: Precision medicine for all. Precision medicine has been a dream of providers, payors, and patients for some time, but technically it requires large amounts of data, data sharing, processing power and rich collaboration. Only recently has health data interoperability, cloud platform security, and data and AI sophistication become accessible, applicable, and affordable enough to where precision medicine can go mainstream.

Imagine clinicians being able to design and implement health, wellness, and treatment plans for each of their patients, based on their own personal genomics and risk factors. This dream can be a reality in the Health Data Renaissance.

#3 example: Faster triage. Paramedics respond to a 911 call and discover an unconscious gunshot victim. They enter his identity into a mobile ID and routing app along with a high-level status of “unconscious, gunshot wound.” Within seconds, the paramedics know the victim’s health history, allergies, etc. and are routed to the optimal trauma center based on transit time, availability, and specialties of the staff. When they arrive, a medical team is assembled and prepped and next to them in the operating room is an interactive widescreen that displays the most pertinent personal health information about the incoming patient with current vital signs. Delivering critical information, fast, to the right people and automating actions based on the information is possible in this Health Data Renaissance period.

Time to explore the impact of data accessibility
We’re only at the beginning of this exciting period in healthcare. Avanade is working with healthcare systems and research institutions to envision and create the environments and tools needed to take advantage of this potential. For example:

• One European health ministry has reduced the amount of time it takes to complete its research projects from “months to minutes.” Our Cohort Browser that runs on Microsoft Azure can load, process, and analyze data with AI assistance.
• Kaiser Permanente is collaborating with Avanade, Accenture, and Microsoft to upgrade and enhance its hosted cloud environment to better support its 12.4 million members and 85,000+ clinicians. This will help Kaiser deliver more personalized digital experiences and more insightful analysis.
• We’re working with a clinical trials services company to help it build a platform that streamlines and automates parts of clinical trials. Digital collaboration, virtual health and collaboration play a key part.

First steps to access healthcare’s future
Clients often ask what steps they can take to capture the benefits of health data interoperability and emerging digital and analytics technology:

• Get your data to the cloud as quickly as you can. Select a platform that’s committed to and invests regularly in health and the industry security standards (including HiTrust, HL7-FHIR). Be sure it includes a robust access management component.
• Once your data is in the cloud, make it accessible with the right permissions. Secure in the knowledge that you’ve selected a proven, secure platform capable of safely sharing patient and research data, as well as managing who has access to what, create protocols for how to access and share your data.
• Reimagine how work gets done and what patients’ and clinicians’ experience “should” be. Be aspirational and start with the end in mind.
• Drive aggressively toward digital transformation. From telemedicine to remote patient monitoring to care team collaboration, there are lots of digital health solutions for patients, clinicians and administrators that create more and valuable data to collect and use appropriately. Take a modular approach; big bangs tend to be more difficult to pull off.
• Drive adoption of digital health solutions. This starts with the envisioning and design of the solutions. Enlist the front-line workers who will use the solutions in their everyday roles.
• Find a good partner. You’ll want to work with a partner that is strong in your chosen platform and can span as many of your needs as possible. The fewer seams you have across services providers the better.

Welcome to the challenges and opportunities brought by the Health Data Renaissance. Now is the time to select technology partners and platforms that can help you make the most of what’s possible now and for years to come.

To learn more visit Avanade Health or contact us at Avanade Health.