Medicine has a long history of changing and improving significantly as time goes on. While the current state of medicine is already a powerful one that helps a variety of patients dealing with many different conditions, that’s not to say there isn’t room for further development. Just as discoveries like sanitation and sterilization, antibiotics, X-rays and MRI have changed the face of medicine, so can predictive analytics. With solutions like IBM’s Cognos suite available to help healthcare facilities improve patient care and operate more effectively as businesses, creating benefits for both patients and providers.
Making the most of a powerful data source
“Electronic health records are a source of valuable data for predictive analytics.”
The Harvard Business Review pointed to the power of electronic health records as a source of valuable data for analysis and application. With EHR requirements in full effect and many providers already using them, their digital nature makes them far better suited for predictive analysis than the paper records used in the past.
Providers can use business intelligence software to harness algorithms that look at their patient base, as well as subsets of that group to find patterns, risk factors and other valuable types of medical information. Additionally, individual providers can work with other facilities to develop broader databases and seek out larger, more general trends and patterns.
With the data available and predictive analytics able to turn relatively raw information into actionable and useful insights, healthcare providers can take a more proactive stance in terms of identifying potential issues and communicating them to patients. A series of risk factors that make a patient predisposed to a certain disease or condition can be identified before the problem arises and the patient is negatively affected, creating a better overall outcome in terms of health. That concept can be applied to individual patients and larger groups, as long as enough data is available for algorithms to function appropriately.
Aviana understands not only the core concepts of predictive analytics and big data, but how the concepts and applications can function specifically in the healthcare world. Our experience developing effective, successful predictive analytics solutions for providers means we understand how to fine-tune implementations to match the unique and specific needs of individual facilities. To learn more about our work in the healthcare field, visit our dedicated industry page.
