2022 will require augmented intelligence, IoT and wearables data, and info outside EHRs

Healthcare C-suites will go beyond transactional predictive models and adopt augmented intelligence to support organizational, data-driven decision-making. Figuring out how to identify and acquire the plethora of essential data currently outside legacy EHRs – mobile applications, smart health, wearables and other devices – will be an essential challenge. T.J. Elbert, senior vice president and general manager, data, Health Catalyst. Q. One 2022 prediction you've made is that healthcare C-suites will adopt augmented intelligence to support organizational, data-driven decision making. Q. You've said with telehealth comes the need for a data strategy that incorporates new Internet of Things, patient portal and wearables data, as well as the governance and orchestration required to incorporate this data into patient care. This rapidly expanding healthcare ecosystem means a lot more data and sources of data, challenging health system data and analytics capabilities to navigate and derive insights from across these multiple sources. Disparate sources, including patient portals, wearables and others, produce different types and quality of data, requiring health systems to apply standard meanings to make the data usable (governance). Q. You've stated that figuring out how to identify and acquire the plethora of essential data currently outside legacy EHRs – mobile apps, smart health, wearables and other tools – will be an essential challenge for 2022 and a critical component of any successful population health management program. To meet the goals of this comprehensive approach to population health management, health systems must be ready to leverage and integrate data beyond the EHR to capture a full understanding of their patients' health and wellbeing. Today's population health outlook is the product of a series of revolutions in the way U.S. healthcare understands its role and operates, with the current revolution being the data revolution. As the healthcare market sees increasing data innovation (for example, outpatient, monitoring, home health), private equity is putting significant dollars into the industry to fund innovation not supported by traditional players in the healthcare ecosystem. This investment is creating more resources around what modern population health management requires – more data from beyond the EHR.