It is quickly becoming more important than ever for healthcare facilities to take full advantage of their data. This can lead to some important outcomes for their patients, including better treatment effectiveness, higher quality care, faster diagnosis, and faster release of new therapies. On the contrary, poor data use can lead to some very disastrous implications, including misdiagnosis, medication errors, and even lawsuit risks, so it must be used with caution. 

Unfortunately, most healthcare organizations are not already in a great spot to use their data effectively. In fact, 80% of healthcare executives are reporting that they feel concerned about the current state of their organization’s data, so clearly there is a lot of work to be done. One of the most pressing areas for them to fix is the fragmentation of their data sources. Larger orgs use 40+ platforms, which creates obstacles for knowledge workers to track down the right info. 

One possible remedy is the use of data warehouses. These centralized repositories make it easy for knowledge workers to quickly find the information they need, instead of spending 30% of their work week searching. They can be a huge investment of time and resources, but overall provide a huge benefit for patient outcomes in the long term. 

Source: Megadata