Podcast

How does access to healthcare data save lives? 

Consider the story of a 28-year-old patient who died from an opioid addiction. After the fact, his healthcare team realized that the young man had visited seven different emergency departments in the two months prior to his death. But without access to that information, none of the EDs realized the full extent of the problem. With the right data, they would have intervened differently, and the patient might still be alive today.

Don Woodlock is Head of the Healthcare Business Unit at InterSystems, the leading provider of creative data technology solutions for the healthcare, finance and logistics industries. Don has 30 years of experience in healthcare IT, and he is dedicated to empowering care providers and connecting care communities through easy-to-use health information.

On this episode of HLTH Matters, Don joins host Jody Tropeano, Content Director at HLTH, to discuss the difference between healthy and unhealthy data, offering examples of how healthy data makes a powerful difference in patient care. Don explains the benefits of data interoperability and shares his take on machine learning as the future of healthcare. Listen in to understand why predictive models have yet to make a difference in patient care and learn how clinical data can be used to empower research and improve public health.

Topics Covered

• InterSystems’ work in building creative data solutions for healthcare
• The difference between healthy and unhealthy data
• Examples of how healthy data makes a powerful difference in patient care
• How data interoperability benefits health systems, vendors and patients
• Why analytics projects are not ‘done’ when the dashboard goes live
• Don’s take on machine learning as the future of healthcare
• Why predictive models have yet to make an impact in the healthcare space
• Using clinical data to improve public health, research and patient care