Sixty-three percent of Federal healthcare executives say Big Data will help track and manage population health more efficiently, according to new study underwritten by EMC Corporation. The new report, “The Big Data Cure,” surveyed Federal executives focused on healthcare and healthcare research to examine the current state of Big Data in Federal healthcare. The report found that emerging technologies including mHealth and machine-to-machine (M2M) will fuel change.
Published by MeriTalk, a public-private partnership focused on improving the outcomes of government IT,the study is based on an online survey of 150 Federal executives focused on healthcare and healthcare research in January 2014. Key findings include:
Big Data will Transform Patient Care
- 62 percent say Big Data will significantly improve patient care within military health and VA systems
- 60 percent say Big Data will enhance the ability to deliver preventive care.
But Few Agencies are ready
- Less than one in five say their agency is very prepared to work with Big Data
- Few have invested in IT systems/solutions to optimize data processing (34%) or trained IT professionals to manage and analyze Big Data (29%)
- Feds estimate that successfully leveraging M2M technologies can reduce the cost of patient care by an average of 48%
- Feds expect the most significant impacts to be in diagnostics (75%), medical research (67%), and urgent care (67%)
- One in three say their agency has successfully launched at least one Big Data initiative – 35 percent use Big Data to improve patient care, 31 percent are reducing care costs, 28 percent are improving health outcomes, and 22 percent are increasing early detection.
- 59% believe that in five years, successfully leveraging Big Data will be critical to fulfilling their agency’s mission objectives
“Emerging mHealth and M2M technology will together create a new healthcare data deluge, and tremendous opportunity to improve efficiency and patient care,” said Dan Dougherty, vice president, EMC Federal. “DoD delivers healthcare to nearly 10 million people through TRICARE, and we know costs have been rising. Big Data analytics, mHealth, and M2M technology can make an impact in key areas including helping to more successfully manage chronic conditions with improved preventative care – monitoring and addressing symptoms before they become acute.”
“Forty-seven percent of Feds say the successful use of mHealth technologies and data has the potential to be more impactful than the discovery of penicillin,” said Steve O’Keeffe, founder, MeriTalk. “That’s a real shot in the arm for improving Federal healthcare.”
Feds anticipate M2M technologies will also have a significant impact. While just 15 percent of respondents say they have implemented M2M technologies today, 53 percent plan to do so within the next two years. Feds expect M2M technologies to have the greatest impacts on improving patient care and remote patient monitoring. Better data, in real time – will lead to better decisions. All of this can be achieved, but not without some trials and tribulations. Feds expect securing patient data will represent the biggest challenge with M2M technologies. Despite challenges, nine out of 10 respondents expect M2M technologies and data to have positive impacts across the healthcare industry.
To download the full study, please visit www.meritalk.com/bigdatacure.
