The swine flu outbreak emphasises the global, connected
challenges facing today's healthcare professionals - but technology
can help,writes John Poulter, senior vice president EMEA
atInformatica.
Being able to monitor risk, identify potential carriers and
share accurate information is at the heart of controlling potential
pandemics. And given the speed at which disease can spread,
information has to be as near to real time as possible.
The good news is that the growing computerisation of healthcare
IT means that information on this scale is increasingly available.
Historically, healthcare providers have worked in silos, with data
kept on local, unconnected systems. The last five years have seen a
push for national IT systems, such as Connecting for Health (CfH),
that securely share data, including medical records, to deliver
better patient care and increase efficiency.
This information explosion has however created three new
challenges. Data needs to be integrated between multiple different
systems, quality needs to be checked and advanced analytics are
necessary to track trends and navigate through the potentially
millions of records out there.
In the case of pandemics integrating different IT
infrastructures is complicated by the number of countries, systems
and standards involved. It is impossible to expect every healthcare
IT system to use the same standards - cost alone would be
prohibitive. Add in disparate hardware and software configurations,
ranging from mainframes to the latest web-based systems and you see
the scale of the integration problem.
While it is pretty obvious that neighbouring NHS trusts will
need to be able to exchange information, sharing information
internationally is a new experience. And it is impossible to plan
who you will need to integrate with. Given the speed at which
diseases spread once the need is identified it must be met quickly
if pandemics are to be understood, tracked and ultimately
controlled.
Therefore hard-wired links will not work. What is needed is a
more open approach that can handle all types of data, check
information quality and translate it accordingly. Essentially this
should be an information hub that combines built in translators for
common data formats, with a user-friendly way of integrating new
formats. And despite the increase in healthcare IT use, it is vital
that unstructured data such as fax, email and spreadsheets can also
be included.
Information quality is vital to ensure both that data is
complete and that systems are acting consistently. For example
different terms need to be understood, different fields need to be
matched and dubious or unclear records flagged automatically. This
prevents bad data corrupting the overall picture and aids
analysis.
Bringing data together and making it cohesive and consistent
provides the ability for healthcare professionals to access the
most powerful weapon against pandemics - real time information.
Understanding where swine flu cases are most concentrated, who
carriers have recently been in contact with, susceptibility of
particular groups and specific ways that diseases are spreading
should put doctors one step ahead. Used correctly, comparisons can
be drawn with other countries or outbreaks, providing the ability
to predict next steps and take action accordingly.
Swine flu has been declared the first pandemic of the 21st
century and demonstrates that the need for real-time collaboration
across the world is accelerating. With technology increasingly at
the heart of healthcare, it is vital that organisations work
together and integrate data in order to turn it into useful,
actionable and real time information. This analysis will provide
the ability to stay one step ahead of pandemics to control the
further spread of disease and hopefully minimise potential loss of
life.