HIMSSCast: Making data silos at the POC a thing of the past

It wasn’t that long ago that healthcare was seen to have slower adoption of data science, compared with other industries. Even with the existence of state-of-the-art analytics platforms, few doctors were using them as recently as a few years ago.

Fast forward to today. Phoenix Children’s Hospital Chief Medical Information Officer Dr. Vinay Vaidya and Dr. Wendy Bernatavicius, division chief of general pediatrics, will tell you their organization’s superpower is “data, data and data.” 

Using electronic health records to improve communication has also been a “game-changer,” they say, giving Phoenix Children’s clinicians the data they need when they need it most. From morning alerts that tell them which patients in their day’s case load have penicillin allergies to early sepsis warnings for patients in acute care, real-time decision support tools have been well-received and are now widely used across departments. 

Vaidya and Bernatavicius spoke with HIMSSCast about how patient data should factor into clinical support, and about workflow considerations and how they nurture effective collaboration between clinicians and data analysts. 

Making data-driven support meaningful has been a positive experience for the hospital’s clinicians, they say. Previous data silos, across more than 40 subspecialties and IT, have been broken down. And while custom-built analytics tools have improved patient care, the emergence of a data-driven culture change has been one of the best outcomes.

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Talking points:

Creating data-driven tools that improve patient outcomes while being cognizant of alert fatigue.
Bringing real-time, appropriately timed “military precision” data to the point of care.
Delivering high-level pediatric population health data across workflows.
Fostering two-way collaboration with data analysts.
Making IT rounds and other pro tips for peer health systems.

More about this topic:

McGill University Health’s journey to a data-driven culture

In 2025, look for more digital-first patient engagement and data-driven decisions

Q&A: Patient safety derives from data-driven leadership

Premise Health scores big with data ingestion and analytics technologies

Jewish General uses self-service platform, synthetic data to democratize analytics

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.