When describing the state of healthcare in the last few months, people have used certain words over and over again.
Unprecedented, crisis, rapid, and novel have become staple terms in the nation’s vocabulary, highlighting both the anomalous nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for quick, innovative solutions.
At a time like this, researchers and leaders have to look beyond time-intensive, expensive randomized controlled trials. In order to find the answers to a question that is always evolving, the industry will need to examine information that is similarly ever-changing: Real-world data.
Defined by the FDA as data relating to patient health status or the delivery of healthcare routinely collected from a range of sources, real-world data is increasingly being used in clinical decision-making. Organizations are leveraging EHR data, patient registries, and mobile device information to better understand trends and outcomes, leading to improved care delivery.
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During the current pandemic, this information has become all the more valuable. Real-world data can help inform leaders about anything from high-risk patient populations to the impact of measures like social distancing. It’s an invaluable resource, but like any data-related strategy in healthcare, it comes with several hurdles.
For starters, the breadth of this data can easily overwhelm entities without the tools or capacity to make sense of it. And even if they do have what they need to draw comprehensive conclusions from this information, quickly executing an efficient response is another task entirely.
As the pandemic surges on, the healthcare industry is continually developing new approaches to help reduce the spread and mitigate potential long-term effects of the virus – with real-world data playing a central role.
Through advanced analytics techniques, visualization tools, and other data-driven methods, organizations can begin to get the most out of real-world data sources, facilitating improved care now and in the future.
Gathering real-world information for real-world results
In order for healthcare institutions to successfully utilize real-world data, the information presented has to be accurate, timely, and actionable, according to Lisa Gulker, senior director of health system operations at Cerner.
“The overarching goal of real-world data is to give providers the best possible information so that they can consistently make great decisions for their patient populations,” she said.
“Organizations use this information to manage the resources that patients need, such as beds at a particular level of care, the right equipment, and the right staff to take care of patients.”
Such decisions are best informed by real-world data collected continuously and in real time. With real-time data, gathered from real-world sources, clinicians can gain a better sense of patient needs, as well as staffing and resources, to deliver optimal care.
However, making decisions based on information that is constantly changing is no easy feat, Gulker noted.
“When you’re used to working off of manual or retrospective data, it does take a lot of people and process transformation to respond to real-time data,” she said.
“At a leadership level, you’re using real-time data to make sure you generate value, protect patients, and efficiently and effectively move patients through the system. At the point of service level, you’re using this data to decide where to place patients in a health system and in what order. There are several chessboards you have to consider, and you have to have enough situational awareness of all of these different chessboards to make a great decision.”
To help organizations visualize operations in a centralized location, Cerner recently launched the Cerner Command Center dashboard, a platform powered by artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. The dashboard displays metrics like inpatient bed utilization, hospital admissions, and discharges in real time, allowing clinicians to make more informed care decisions.
Real-time and real-world data dashboards have been key to COVID-19 response efforts, but tools like these will continue to play a role in information delivery even after the pandemic has slowed down, Gulker added.
Source: Healthit Analytics