Data Management in Healthcare

The world of healthcare is built upon the trust between medical providers, insurance companies, and the patients they depend on. However, it’s not easy to streamline communication between all of these parties, and miscommunications or delays can threaten that trust. The degree of variation in data collected, formatting, file types, and other differences must be overcome with modern data management solutions — a digital, cloud-based, structured, and easily searchable system that is empowered with automation wherever possible.

Providers use these data management systems to ensure that patients have access to their own information while still maintaining proper privacy and data security. Thoughtful data management in healthcare allows organizations to carefully control and monitor access permissions while also increasing the accessibility, searchability, and usability of that same information for use during normal business operations.

What Makes Up Healthcare Data?

Think about the last time you visited a medical office as a new patient. There are multiple forms and disclosures that must be signed before you'll even be seen. From there, your electronic health records (EHR) will start including more and more unique information such as:

• Medical charts
• X-ray, MRI, and CT scan images
• A detailed list of prescription medication
• Lab and test results
• Previous medical history
• Insurance information
• Personal data such as your name, DOB, SSN, and address

The data stored for each patient adds up quickly and must be carefully protected and organized for regulatory compliance as well as efficient access that improves clinical outcomes.

What are the Applications of Data Management in Healthcare?

Clinical data management systems are used to collect, store, and provide all of the above information to different medical facilities as your health needs change. To make the experience of referrals consistent, healthcare providers must deploy intelligent data management solutions that provide permission-based access to stakeholders throughout the patient’s journey, keeping private information secure when changing hands.

Another capability that helps ensure responsible and efficient data management in healthcare is AI and machine learning. Intelligent data management tools make it possible to quickly and automatically update patient files, organize intake forms, and index files based on industry rules and regulations.

Why Is Proper Healthcare Data Management So Important?

Personal information is a heavily protected piece of data for every patient and office. The federal government has recently been even more aggressive in cracking down on health data privacy violations, with states following suit by increasing data protections. 

The amount of information that a single facility has available at any given time can be enough to put their patients at risk of identity theft in the event of a security breach. On top of this, the consequences of a medical office not properly protecting their data can include fines, loss of license, and even potential jail time in extreme cases. There have been 295 data breaches for the healthcare sector in the first half of 2023 alone. Often, poor data management is to blame.

How Does Centralized, Digital Data and Document Management Help?

• Access Control: It’s imperative that organizations stop both external and internal parties from obtaining information they have no right or need to possess. Keeping access to personal data restricted to those who actually need it is an important first step.
  
  
• Efficiency & Alignment: Once all data is properly secured, data management systems then work to improve workflow and efficient access. Oftentimes, forms will request the same information as each other — which creates redundancies within the database. By reducing how many times a specific piece of data is listed for a patient, any updates or changes to the info are able to be corrected in one central location without duplicating data or creating new data that is contradictory to data stored in other locations.
  
  
• One Source of Truth: Redundancies are also a concern when multiple platforms are being used to store patient information. Data management will bring all of these sources into one access point, eliminating issues commonly found in cross-platform communications. 
  
  
• Reduced Risks: Locally storing all of this data on a hard drive or in a file cabinet can also pose a problem regarding both security (fires, theft, lost documents).
  
  
• Money & Space Savings: Physical documents take up a lot of space as they amass over time. As a facility expands, cloud-based data management quickly becomes a necessity to keep budgets in line while also improving efficiency in the workplace.

How Can Scan-Optics Improve Existing Healthcare Data Management?

One of the biggest challenges in healthcare data is the sheer quantity of unique and industry-specific information. Scan-Optics applies our easy.forward™ system to solve this problem with more than 30 years of data management expertise, a proven system, and advanced AI and machine learning techniques. Electronic medical records pose no problem regardless of how many different systems are currently being used.

Our document processing has achieved a 99.9% accuracy across multiple industries thanks to our devout research teams that take both technological practices and industry insights into account when creating new features and improving upon what's already available.

If your facility is in need of healthcare data management, you can learn more about our platform.