3 steps to transform health

Medical data has traditionally been a product of information obtained through health tests, but this form of data collection often cannot contribute to true preventive healthcare. Healthcare systems and data are designed to treat patients, but at the end of the day, patients just want to be people again.

But what if healthcare systems and practitioners started recording information such as the neighborhood a person lives in, the amount of time they spend on social media, or even whether someone has a pet? This data can be used to paint a better picture of their health and needs.

Quick and relatively easy access to medical data, such as electronic health records, clinical information and surveys, tells doctors almost everything about a patient’s health and well-being. But medical data, as we currently define it, rarely covers a patient’s lifestyle, relationships, exercise habits and diet – despite this form of ‘life data’ revealing as much about patients as their blood pressure, lipid profile and disease history.

With this in mind, is the current scope of medical data collection too limited?

Why the everyday things matter

Life data can transform healthcare providers’ ability to devise accurate long-term treatment strategies. For example, medical records typically do not include information about whether or not a patient owns a pet, which can be critical studies have shown that pets can play a major role in improving cardiovascular health through stress reduction.

Medical forms also leave out some other important vital information questions, such as:

• How strong are a patient’s relationships with their family and friends?
• What does their current diet look like? Are they vegan/vegetarian/pescetarian?
• How long have they been married or single? Does their marital status contribute to their health problems?

Research has shown that information from questions like the above can lead to more accurate diagnoses and more positive treatment outcomes. It can also provide a deeper understanding of health, aging, education and many other aspects of human life, ultimately demonstrating the relationship between health, behavior and other conditions. By broadening the definition of medical data, healthcare providers can gain a clearer picture of a patient’s health and vulnerability to certain diseases.

Making life better

Including life data in data collection can lead to better individual preventive interventions, such as personalized, genomics-based interventions accompaniment about nutrition and exercise. These, in turn, could boost human health for years to come. The use of life data drives healthcare that relies more on prevention, wellness and scientific progress, which are important health topics that our healthcare system cannot ignore.

Life data, enhanced by technological innovations, can create even more enormous opportunities. The possibilities of digital transformation are endless, especially in the crucial phase of data collection and analysis. This is where ‘big data’ comes in – a term that describes our ability to make sense of the world’s increasing amounts of data, which is used to analyze large numbers of medical records to predict disease and improve treatment, among other things.

As our ability to process data grows and the devices that collect this data shrink to previously unimaginable sizes, the potential to collect and understand this data is enormous. Big data can also lead to new approaches in the prevention, early detection and treatment of diseases around the world.

However, data privacy cannot be ignored in today’s digital healthcare landscape. Extensive privacy safeguards are needed to protect data, including multiple rounds of encryption and firewalls.

Connecting information

There is no doubt that big data will continue to drive transformation in healthcare, and as healthcare moves away from a task-driven model – focused on disease and behavior management – ​​towards patient-centered careLife data will become even more important in enabling and maintaining better health for millions of patients.

While life data still resides outside of patients’ records, it is slowly becoming part of the healthcare conversation, with current efforts consisting of small tests and pilots to incorporate such data into clinical settings. The problem, however, is that the data is stored in disconnected silos, so we need a system to connect the information to healthcare in a meaningful way.

To truly create, utilize and work with big data, all data sources must be connected – increasing knowledge, care and quality of life.