Mala Anand: Integrating data is a key to better patient outcomes скачать в хорошем качестве

Mala Anand: Integrating data is a key to better patient outcomes

The health care industry has been slow to embrace data-driven methods and technologies. Data scientists can help speed digital transformation. Transportation, communications, the shape of the workforce. All are being rapidly transformed by digital technology. But the digital transformation of health care is moving at a much slower pace, says Mala Anand, president of SAP Leonardo. Speaking at the 3rd annual Women in Data Science conference at Stanford University, Anand says the industry’s focus on treatment rather than prevention has led to the relative neglect of software in favor of hardware. “We have sophisticated devices for diagnostics, but an immature infrastructure to capture and manage data.” And while there are enormous amounts of data available, much of it is fragmented and disconnected, residing in silos inside health care providers, their partners and suppliers. “And in the context of a very regulated industry, what happens is this limits collaboration,” Anand says. As a result, decision making by clinicians is generally not data driven, even in the treatment of very serious diseases such as cancer. Data scientists can play a crucial role in bringing change to health care by helping to build platforms that unify disparate sources of data, allowing it to be shared appropriately and mined. “You need to respect data, aggregate that data and treat data as a first-class asset,” she says. Building a data governance framework is an important early step. Data metrics must be well defined and consistently and securely managed across the entire network of the enterprise. “And then you need to connect all of this data irrespective of the source and the format of the data.” A data structure should encompass more than just clinical data; it should include health-related data from external sources as well. The next step is one that Anand calls “democratizing the data.” By that she means “making it available throughout the organization to foster a culture of data-driven decisions.” SAP Leonardo is conducting a pilot program with Berlin’s Charité Hospital and the National Center for Tumor Control in Heidelberg, Germany. According to Anand, they’ve created an integrated data set of patient information and outcomes that even includes information from doctors’ case notes. “While sitting with a patient, physicians can now both search local cases and they can also search history as well as tumor registries,” she says. Anand concluded her talk by saying: “Where we embrace this concept of collaboration, it’s not just about transforming our industry, it’s about making an impact on people’s lives. When we embed capabilities [such as] machine learning, big data, analytics, it allows us to reap unprecedented value from data.”