Population health and data analytics tools are quickly joining EHRs as staples of hospitals' IT infrastructure.
A HealthLeaders Media survey found that more healthcare organizations will soon use data analytics as a tool for prediction and tracking population health. A little less than half of healthcare leaders currently use analytics to track population health, but that number will be nearly 80 percent by 2018, according to the survey.
The transition to value-based care and improved outcomes may drive adoption. Caring for populations with similar diseases will require healthcare leaders to use evidence-based medicine in treatment, according to a news release. Most are likely to draw from EHR data, patient demographics and aggregated EHR data and claims data. However, healthcare organizations may find a need for supplementary systems and EHRs may transition to become transaction systems rather than pillars of IT, according to the news release.
More healthcare executives are moving into investing in population health as well. Three-quarters of the 8,000 respondents reported plans to begin or increase investments in the quality of their data in the next year, and 52 percent cite overcoming insufficient skills in analytics as a top strategy problem, according to the news release.