Low expectations for clinical data mining

Payers and providers rarely use clinical data for real-time decision-making, in part because information is in so many disparate formats, some important data elements are missing and because they believe the costs generally outweigh the benefits.

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Study: Payers, providers alike have low expectations for clinical data mining

June 14, 2010 | By Neil Versel

Between the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the coming conversion to ICD-10 coding and 5010 transactions, the advent of smart medical devices and just the general growth in health IT, the amount of electronic health data is exploding. Yet, healthcare organizations aren't quite sure just how to use this information.

"A key finding for us was that both payers and providers had limited expectations for how clinical analytics could improve the quality of patient care--especially at the point of care--and lower costs through that improved quality," Richard Noffsinger, CEO of San Diego-based data analytics firm Anvita Health, says, Healthcare IT News reports. "Comprehensive real-time analytics can take these stakeholders beyond just evaluation, and provide a blueprint for action by physicians, care managers and others in the care continuum."

Anvita Health commissioned a newly released HIMSS Analytics study on clinical data mining. HIMSS Analytics convened a focus group of CMOs and and CMIOs of provider and payer organizations for the report.

Payers and providers alike generally don't often employ clinical data for real-time decision-making, in part because information is in so many disparate formats, some important data elements are missing and because they believe the costs generally outweigh the benefits. "These challenges are consistent with what we've seen and heard from our payer and provider customers," Noffsinger explains. "Interoperability of data is a hurdle, but it's not insurmountable."

Here is a relevant report
Clinical Analytics: Can Organizations Maximize Clinical Data?, from Anvita Health