In this new normal world, there has been a significant trend toward predictive and preventative approaches in public health due to a growing need for patient-centric or value-based, medical treatment. Rather than just treating symptoms as they arise, doctors can spot patients who are at high risk of acquiring chronic diseases and intervene before they become a problem.
Preventive therapy may assist to avoid long-term difficulties and costly hospitalizations, lowering expenses for the practitioner, insurance company, and patient.
Thanks to the data for making it feasible. But only collecting and storing data won’t help. We need to analyze data and use it to our advantage. That’s why data analytics is playing a significant role in digitizing healthcare in the new normal world.
Data analytics is critical since it helps organizations improve their results. Healthcare analytics uses current and historical data to gain insights, macro and micro, and support decision-making at both the patient and business level. The application of healthcare analytics has the potential to lower treatment costs, forecast disease outbreaks, avoid preventable diseases, and much more. It means, data analytics in healthcare helps to enhance overall patient care and quality of life.
A Statista report has revealed that by 2025 the market for health-related analytics will increase to about $28 billion. Here we will discuss the prospects of digital analytics in the healthcare industry in this new normal world.
Electronic Health Records (EHR)
According to the HealthIT.gov report, 75% of healthcare professionals claim that their EHR helps them provide better patient care, which leads to increased patient satisfaction and fewer prescription mistakes, among other advantages. It helps both the patients and clinics in ample ways, like:
- Saves space and reduces paper waste.
- Avoids repetitive tests
- Patients can receive follow-up reminders and take better care of their health.
- Doctors can more quickly do the diagnosis and avoid preventable diseases.
- Improved care coordination
Fitness devices
Nowadays, a considerable population wears fitness devices like FitBit, Apple Watch, etc. These wearable devices help to keep a track of the physical activities of the people using them.
The data acquired by these gadgets is transferred to cloud servers. By doing so, doctors can utilize the data to determine an individual’s overall health and create appropriate wellness programs. Besides, the data can help doctors learn about particular health-related tendencies.
Prediction of disease outbreaks
Data analytics may also be used to forecast patterns in the transmission of disease, helping doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare workers to be better prepared.
For example, the WHO (World Health Organization) collects data on the reported cases of influenza. Based on that, the vaccine makers prepare the influenza vaccines so that influenza can be prevented as much as possible.
The CDC says, “The influenza viruses in the seasonal flu vaccine are selected each year based on surveillance data indicating which viruses are circulating and forecasts about which viruses are the most likely to circulate during the coming season.”
Besides, health has become the new passport because vaccinations define travel restrictions. Detecting the next inevitable variant, epidemic, or pandemic needs the dynamic analytics of AI and IoT.
Fraud prevention
Fraud in healthcare is one of the biggest issues across the globe. According to a report, nearly 60 billion dollars are lost annually due to health care fraud and abuse.
Predictive analytics, when combined with trained machine learning models, may detect specific irregularities that indicate fraudulent behavior, allowing for early detection.
Reduction of healthcare costs
Healthcare costs are gradually rising every year. According to PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) report, a 6.5% medical cost trend in 2022 is expected.
But the use of data analytics can help to reduce healthcare costs. Hospitals and doctors may acquire precise models for cutting costs and patient risk by using predictive and prescriptive data analytics.
The more insights this data analytics provides physicians, the better patient care they may provide. This information also indicates that they are more likely to have shorter hospital stays or fewer admissions or re-admissions. Eventually, patients benefit from lower healthcare costs.
By Abhishek Rungta, Founder & CEO, Indus Net Technologies.
(DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHealthworld does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETHealthworld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person / organisation directly or indirectly.)