Big Data A Big Deal: What Can it Do for Healthcare?

Posted by: Matthew Bick // July 16th, 2012

Big Data has been a tough nut to crack for many, the healthcare industry included.  According Farhad Manjoo in his recent article for Fast Company, “There are so many blue-sky proclamations for what’s become known as Big Data that you need a data scientist to track them all.”  In the healthcare world, Big Data represents the ability to comb through massive amounts of patient data to spot trends and help doctors care for patients proactively.

Manjoo cites an example from Washington D.C.’s Washington Hospital Center to describe just how much Big Data can reveal to even the most watchful practitioners.  In this case, ER doctors noticed a troubling trend: similar to many other emergency rooms, many patients would return to the hospital a few weeks after their discharge, having become ill again.  When the ER staff could not pinpoint any particular cause for the problem, the hospital turned to Eric Horvitz, a physician working for Microsoft Research.

As Manjoo writes, “Horvitz’s main investigative tool is data. He and his colleagues built a system to analyze more than 300,000 ER visits. They looked for correlations among 25,000 variables, including the patients’ medications, vital signs, and doctors.  In the thicket of information, Horvitz stumbled upon a few intriguing surprises. One was the length of a patient’s stay in the hospital. Horvitz’s data showed a tipping point of 14 hours–if you’re in the ER for longer than that, there’s a good chance you’ll be back. Another red flag was fluid. The data showed that any mention of that word on a patient’s medical chart significantly increased the likelihood of readmission.”

But, just how great an impact can Big Data truly have?  Beside the obvious benefits to the patients themselves, healthcare providers stand to gain an enormous amount as well.  Horvitz and his team have created a program called Readmissions Manager, now a part of Microsoft’s healthcare package.  Says Manjoo, “[The software] analyzes hospital data to produce a readmissions forecast for each patient, and doctors can tailor follow-up appointments based on the forecast. How much will this reduce costs? Horvitz is formulating clinical trials now to assess the savings. Studies show that 20% of patients released from American hospitals need to be readmitted within 30 days, an inefficiency that costs Medicare $17 billion a year.”

Clearly, Bid Data is a very big deal.

@MatthewBick

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The Power of an Apology – Crisis Management in Healthcare

Posted by: Neil James // April 30th, 2012

Serious harm or deaths resulting from medical errors are every hospital’s worst nightmare. When these horrific events occur, however, secrecy and denial quickly envelop like a thick fog over the parties involved. In many instances, these shrouds aren’t erected as the result of a deliberate attempt to mislead. Legal, privacy, regulatory and even moral obligations are often the driving force instead. Nevertheless, for grieving families, the silence can be deafening.

A new article by Liz Kowalczyk for the Boston Globe, Hospitals Promise Openness, Apologies, discusses how seven Masssachusetts hospitals have pledged a commitment to both financial settlements and, notably, a prompt apology to all patients harmed by medical errors. This plan, titled “Road Map to Reform”, is designed to promote transparent reporting of medical mistakes while curtailing subsequent, lengthy litigation. The plan, which is being tested by such powerhouses as Beth Israel Deaconess and Franklin Medical Center, also hopes to address the practice of excessive defensive medicine and the occurrence of patient-provider mistrust.

@NeilAndrewJames

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Patient Care Evolution Continues in 2012

Posted by: Matthew Bick // April 16th, 2012

Technology continues to revolutionize patient care and the healthcare industry in general.  However, this latest innovation could be revolutionary.  A company in Redwood City, California, will have a small, ingestible sensor for sale starting this fall in the United Kingdom.  The pill-swallowed sensor transmits a massive amount of medical information to individual users and their doctors.

According to the Star Tribune’s Steve Johnson, Proteus Biomedical’s device will allow doctors and medical professionals to monitor a patient’s status in nearly real-time from their own offices.  A patient could simply take the pill and forget about it while doctors could monitor vital signs and other pertinent indicators.  One of the downsides of this massive amount of new information may in fact be the sheer volume of that data.  Calling it a potential “information tsunami,” Johnson indicates that there are concerns about adding to an already large amount of electronically-produced information.  There are also, of course, security concerns from hackers and identity thieves.

However, the potential upside from so much critical information made readily available is difficult to deny.  As Johnson writes, the increase in information is seen by many as, “inevitable and, ultimately, beneficial.”

@MatthewBick

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How to Accept That Your Patients are Googling Symptoms and Deliver Better Care

Posted by: Neil James // April 9th, 2012

In a new article for Time Magazine, Dr. Zachary F. Meisel introduces readers to the concept of the “Google Stack” – the collection of printouts from various websites outlining virtually every condition that explains a patient’s symptoms. While the behavior of cyberchondriacs can certainly inhibit the delivery of quality care at times, according to Dr. Meisel, more and more often, patients are benefitting from going online prior to medical visits, and their self-diagnoses are becoming increasingly more accurate.

Whether or not this behavior should be encouraged, Dr. Meisel says, is the wrong question – it is happening to the point where it is now a fact of normal patient behavior. As such, care providers need to adopt strategies that maximize the benefits of finding health information online, including:

  • Adopt care strategies that endorse the process of patient self-education
  • Direct patients to websites whose content is peer-reviewed and evidence based
  • Recognize that, in more cases than not, patients are doing the best thing for themselves by going online before their clinic vicit

@NeilAndrewJames

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Patient Care is the Name of the Game For Healthcare in 2012

Posted by: Matthew Bick // April 4th, 2012

Patient experience has always been an integral part of healthcare, but 2012 promises to up the ante.  As social networking continues to mature, more users will have the ability to post their experiences with individual healthcare facilities than ever before.

Jason A Wolf, Ph.D., executive director of the Beryl Institute, indicated his thoughts on the continual opportunity to improve on patient experience.  “In the year ahead patient experience will be as critical, if not more so, than before, and…it will be important to look back as you plan ahead.”  With the sharing of experiences with healthcare increasing online (think about sites like CaringBridge), medical professionals will find managing their patients’ experiences both in the office and online will become an integral part of the doctor-patient relationship.

@MatthewBick

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Harnessing New Technology Key to Improving Patient Care

Posted by: Matthew Bick // January 18th, 2012

WebMD and other online-diagnosis sites have helped empower patients in a medical setting in ways never before seen.  The question for doctors and other healthcare professionals is how do harness new and maturing technologies to provide an even higher standard of patient care.  Many healthcare professionals are turning to social media as a way to improve interaction with their patients.

In a new post for KevinMD.com, Dr. Mark Ryan indicates that few doctors have truly embraced social media in terms of patient care.  He goes on to say that those physicians are missing an opportunity to learn more about their patient and find new ways to provide medical advice.  Dr. Ryan also refers to a Pew Internet report indicating that “many Americans turn to friends and family for support and advice when they have a health problem.”  Through social media, healthcare professionals have the opportunity to join that group of people who advise on health issues, improving patient care and patient satisfaction in general.

@MatthewBick

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