Data analytics strategy represents a сomprehensive approach to handle massive data sets with specific technologies. The data analytics process is quickly permeating many industries, especially the healthcare industry.
In the healthcare industry, data analytics yields almost immediate benefits with measurable results and actionable insights. The benefits of data analytics in healthcare are majorly divided in two categories; reducing the cost of treatment and improving patient outcomes.
By analyzing available data, doctors can quickly learn about their patients’ medical history, allergies, and illnesses they have suffered at different points in their lives, providing insights into the patient’s current health status.
Doctors’ can also see the earliest warning signs of diseases and tackle such illnesses at their first stages, thus improving treatments.
With healthcare analytics, doctors can make accurate predictions, track risks for chronic diseases, monitor a patient’s response to treatment more efficiently, manage staffing and inventory, and generally improve patient care. Below are some of the ways in which data analytics in healthcare works to improve healthcare delivery.
Improving patient outcomes
By providing real-time data to bolster medical evidence, analytics can quickly provide relevant insights on health data related to patient wellness for making better decisions and improving the quality of treatment and patient safety. Custom healthcare software development helps collect and transform data into actionable insights, improving patient care and medical support. Physicians can identify high-risk patients and possible complications, helping them to intervene faster and more efficiently.
In the United States, over 90% of hospitals ensure the seamless transfer of patient data across all medical facilities using Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Each patient has a digital and adjustable health record that captures every useful piece of information that can help healthcare providers form accurate opinions about a patient’s health status.
This completely eliminates needless paperwork, decreases office visits, eliminates repetitive lab tests, streamlines the process, and generally improves outcomes.
Bolstering patient engagement
Healthcare analytics also improve patient engagement by actively involving them in their healthcare. There are certain situations where patients are asked to wear smart health devices that track changing vital signs such as heart rates, blood pressure, blood sugar level, etc.
With these smart devices, patients can monitor changes in their physical conditions and update their digital record with real-time data which their physician can access and give them feedback even without a hospital visit. This significantly cuts back unnecessary hospital visits, so healthcare providers focus on more important cases. The more patients are actively involved in their healthcare, the better they are motivated to live healthier lives.
Predicting risk of chronic diseases
Chronic disease treatment is known to be one of the most expensive in the healthcare industry. The majority of factors that affect health conditions are hidden in patients’ daily lifestyle choices and health habits. Therefore delivering the best possible medical care will mean considering these factors and developing an encompassing analytics model for predicting the risk of certain diseases.
Capturing the relevant metrics data analytics can predict which patients are at higher risks of certain chronic disease development or recognize the earliest warning signs and move quickly to address such disease at the initial stage. Predictive analytics is a big part of data analytics, as it can help doctors circumvent preventable illnesses and tackle chronic diseases before they get out of hand.
Source: Analytics Insight