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Lauren Usrey

Driving healthier outcomes with healthier data

The Healthy Data. Healthy People. panel discussion at CONNECT 2022 brought together healthcare leaders from across the industry to discuss the importance of data quality in supporting healthier outcomes. Panelists discussed how interoperability solutions reduce clinician burden, support cybersecurity, and support data quality improvements in all types of healthcare organizations. 

Watch the full video or read a recap below. 

Panelists included: 

  • Kim Chaundy, AVP, applications and interoperability, Geisinger 
  • Mike Noshay, co-founder and chief strategy & marketing officer, Verinovum 
  • Naresh Sundar Rajan, chief data officer, CyncHealth 
  • Paul Viskovich, CEO, Healthfully 
  • Mark Ralph, manager, technology and HIE, Nova Scotia Health Authority 

Chris Notaro, co-founder and CEO, Untangle Health, moderated the discussion. 

From left to right: Paul Viskovich, Naresh Sundar Rajan, Mark Ralph, Mike Noshay, Kim Chaundy, and Chris Notaro. 

What does Healthy Data. Healthy People. mean? 

When asked what Healthy Data. Healthy People. means for their organization, panelists echoed the idea that quality data is the foundation of healthy outcomes. 

Kim expressed that at Geisinger, there has been a shift in mindset from thinking about patients to thinking about people , as a reminder that at the end of the day people are at the heart of everything. “We are making sure that they feel that they’re heard. They’re part of it, and they get access to all of their data, and they understand where their data lies. As well as how they could communicate with all of their respected areas,” Kim said. 

Mike shared similar sentiments.  “I appreciate person and personalized because what we’re all here to do is help those that we serve all day every day. I truly believe that healthy people are served best on a foundation of healthy data,” Mike said. 

Paul shared that “to get healthy people… we start with healthy data. There’s a lot of work in getting that healthy data and we use the Rhapsody EMPI to identify the patient uniquely, and make sure not get duplicates, and we can aggregate the data together. And then we’re using Rhapsody to integrate that data, to transform that data, and also to model that data.” 

Mark also expressed the importance of getting patient data right. “We want clean and accurate data to come across from the very beginning of when the patient’s registered.” Mark said. “If the data’s on the wrong patient, that’s just a huge mess as we all can attest to.” 

Naresh discussed the challenges of incomplete data in reporting and monitoring. “For a healthy people perspective or a person perspective, the foundational elements that need to happen underneath the infrastructure that is called interoperability, is the data quality,” Naresh said. 

During the hour-long discussion, panelists covered topics like how health IT professionals support positive patient outcomes, integrating social determinants of health (SDOH) data, the 21st Century Cures Act, and how referential data impacts health data quality. 

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