Preparing for the Massive Surge of Health Data Volume

In 2019 there is no denying that big data lays the foundation for almost every aspect in day-to-day modern life. From online shopping to energy consumption and from mobile maps to public transportation, big data has infiltrated nearly all facets imaginable. “Big data” is defined as extraordinarily large data sets that often require special data processing software to extract information from and analyze. So, where does the healthcare industry fit into all of this?

Research has universally pointed to the massive surge in health data volume, some research firms even referring to a healthcare “data tsunami”. In fact, healthcare data is poised to grow faster than financial services data, media data, and manufacturing data. With projections that health data volumes will increase by nearly 50 percent annually over the next few years, determining a strategy to deal with the data flood is imperative.

Since patient health data is set to increase exponentially, so does the quantity of legacy EHR data. This growth means that healthcare organizations of all sizes must prepare now or risk data chaos in the near future. Managing this enormous amount of patient medical data means finding a software solution that can adequately handle the data evolution.

Is your organization prepared for the massive surge of health data volume? Today, we discuss some critical preparation methods that will help facilitate and manage the inevitable mounting medical data issue.

Ways to Get Ready for the Healthcare Data Boom

Estimates point out that approximately 80 percent of worldwide healthcare data (things like scanned documents, images, lab results, faxes, etc.) is unstructured. This means that the vast majority of health data is living in unorganized, unsorted formats. The fact that disorderly data is growing leaps and bounds means that healthcare organizations need to act now to prepare for the future.

Luckily, technology advances have placed healthcare providers in a unique position to finally manage patient medical data properly. In addition, these advancements have placed medical professionals in the position to take real-time data and use it to make clinical decisions.

The following are some of the most strategic ways that a healthcare organization can prepare for the surge in health data volume:

• Analyze your data to determine both access and retention requirements
• Move forward with EHR data archiving to preserve historical patient data
• Conduct a thorough analysis of your current EHR system
• Think through what EHR system features will most benefit your practice
• Select a new EHR system to better handle your growing data set, preferably cloud-based
• Deploy an EHR data migration plan with a trustworthy partner
• Ensure that each of the above steps are satisfying meaningful use standards as well as any other compliance requirements

Getting your data in the right hands is critical. Beyond that, it is important to understand with this surge in data will come a greater need for big data analytics. Moving your EHR data to a new system will better equip your organization to not only survive in the new age of data, but more importantly, to offer the quality care that your patients depend upon.

At MDH Insight, we are the EHR data conversion specialists. With years of experience under our belts, our team is focused on taking the pain out of EHR data migration through quality, accuracy, and speed. Do you have questions about preparing for the imminent health data surge? Contact our team today to learn more!