Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • ESG: THE NEW IMPERATIVE
Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Current News
    • COVID-19
    • Providers
    • Insurance
    • Government
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Safety & Quality
    • Transformation
    • People
    • Regional News
    • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Patients
    • Operations
    • Care Delivery
    • Payment
    • Midwest
    • Northeast
    • South
    • West
  • Digital Health
  • Insights
    • ACA 10 Years After
    • Best Practices
    • Special Reports
    • Innovations
  • Data/Lists
    • Rankings/Lists
    • Interactive Databases
    • Data Points
  • Op-Ed
    • Bold Moves
    • Breaking Bias
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Vital Signs Blog
    • From the Editor
  • Awards
    • Nominate/Eligibility
    • 100 Most Influential People
    • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
    • Excellence in Governance
    • Health Care Hall of Fame
    • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
    • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
    • Top 25 Innovators
    • Diversity in Healthcare
    • Women in Healthcare
    • - Luminaries
    • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
    • - Leaders to Watch
    • - Luminaries
    • - Top 25 Women Leaders
    • - Women to Watch
  • Events
    • Conferences
    • Galas
    • Virtual Briefings
    • Webinars
    • Transformation Summit
    • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
    • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
    • Leadership Symposium
    • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
    • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
    • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
    • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
    • - Hospital of the Future
    • - Value Based Care
    • - Supply Chain Revenue Cycle
    • - Hospital at Home
    • - Workplace of the Future
    • - Strategic Marketing
    • - Virtual Health
  • Listen
    • Podcast - Next Up
    • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
    • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
    • Video Series - The Check Up
    • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
  • MORE +
    • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Newsletters
    • Jobs
    • People on the Move
    • Reprints & Licensing
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Technology
April 29, 2015 01:00 AM

Time to clean up our data act

Bruce Johnson
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    Johnson

    Let's face it, we're in an era of healthcare where accountability is permeating all phases of the business. It's not just accountable care or accountability for outcomes. It also includes accountability for the decisions being made about the efficacy of our capital investments.

    We see how challenging it is for hospitals as they work to prove meaningful use of their information technology systems. “Big data” is no longer a buzzword, but it's still difficult to realize the promised benefits in healthcare. The ability to analyze massive amounts of data for improved outcomes, both financial and clinical, has a limitation: inaccurate data. Bad data, or dirty data as it is often called, are the Achilles heel of actionable information. Unfortunately, in healthcare, there's too much of it.

    One of the centerpieces of healthcare data today is the electronic health record. The investment in these systems is significant, often costing hospitals and health systems multimillions of dollars. That's because implementation costs are between two to three times the software costs. One reason that EHRs are so important, beyond the potential for clinical gains and the essential requirement to digitize health records, is that they provide an opportunity for reimbursement improvement and revenue growth.

    These systems are all about information, and unfortunately because of the typical quality of EHR data (from care plans and daily progress notes to implant product information), providers cannot uniformly trust their output for evaluating products' clinical effectiveness and securing reimbursements. There is simply too much erroneous billing and product data. From a clinical perspective, imagine 500 different clinicians charting patient information. The probability of normalized data (i.e., data that is standardized across all fields, using a common language) required for big data analysis is low. Proving meaningful use and improved outcomes needs both accurate product and patient information.

    Exacerbating the challenge is the sheer volume of data a facility must maintain and the ongoing data churn. On average, changes are made each year to one-third of the 30 million-plus medical-surgical products on the U.S. market. For example, our firsthand experience at GHX is that dirty data contribute to over 2 million transactional errors each month. We're also making corrections to hospital databases at a rate of 192,000 edits each month. Maintaining data integrity and accuracy is a significant challenge. Many organizations are implementing product data-standardization initiatives in tandem with EHR implementations, using separate teams. Conducting these initiatives together will net the best result.

    Hospital leaders know that not having complete and accurate data is holding them back from the potential to experience significant progress in delivering accountable and informed care. Critically important to this discussion is understanding that having this information reduces costs. Every time someone assigns the wrong charge codes, revenue could be lost and cash flow could be affected.

    Cleaning up the data is critical. What does that look like? From my perspective, it starts through collaboration with an organization's supply-chain team to ensure that enterprise resource-planning systems and EHRs are tightly integrated, and that complete and accurate product data are feeding the EHR. Establish a master data management strategy through which product data are cleansed and corrected. Enrich item master data by assigning charge codes to the products procured. Only then can hospitals accurately and efficiently improve product categorization and reimbursement accuracy.

    Finally, hospitals should implement a virtual-item master to continually monitor for changes and updates, and then systematically correct product data inaccuracies.

    So much opportunity exists to get healthcare right and demonstrate the efficacy of health IT investments for improved healthcare outcomes. Dirty data should not be the thing that's holding us back.

    Bruce Johnson is CEO at GHX, a supply chain management company based in Louisville, Colo.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    freestocks-ux53SGpRAHU-unsplash_7.jpg
    With Roe in doubt, some fear tech surveillance of pregnancy
    Bakul Patel
    Former FDA digital chief joins Google
    Sponsored Content
    Health IT Strategist (HITS) Newsletter: Sign up for the latest IT and medical technology news delivered 3 days a week (M, W, F).
     
    Get Newsletters

    Sign up for enewsletters and alerts to receive breaking news and in-depth coverage of healthcare events and trends, as they happen, right to your inbox.

    Subscribe Today
    MH Magazine Cover

    MH magazine offers content that sheds light on healthcare leaders’ complex choices and touch points—from strategy, governance, leadership development and finance to operations, clinical care, and marketing.

    Subscribe
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS

    Our Mission

    Modern Healthcare empowers industry leaders to succeed by providing unbiased reporting of the news, insights, analysis and data.

    Contact Us

    (877) 812-1581

    Email us

     

    Resources
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise with Us
    • Ad Choices Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Editorial Dept
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Code of Ethics
    • Awards
    • About Us
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Modern Healthcare
    Copyright © 1996-2022. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Current News
      • COVID-19
      • Providers
      • Insurance
      • Government
      • Finance
      • Technology
      • Safety & Quality
      • Transformation
        • Patients
        • Operations
        • Care Delivery
        • Payment
      • People
      • Regional News
        • Midwest
        • Northeast
        • South
        • West
      • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Digital Health
    • Insights
      • ACA 10 Years After
      • Best Practices
      • Special Reports
      • Innovations
    • Data/Lists
      • Rankings/Lists
      • Interactive Databases
      • Data Points
    • Op-Ed
      • Bold Moves
      • Breaking Bias
      • Commentaries
      • Letters
      • Vital Signs Blog
      • From the Editor
    • Awards
      • Nominate/Eligibility
      • 100 Most Influential People
      • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
      • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
      • Excellence in Governance
      • Health Care Hall of Fame
      • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
      • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
      • Top 25 Innovators
      • Diversity in Healthcare
        • - Luminaries
        • - Top 25 Diversity Leaders
        • - Leaders to Watch
      • Women in Healthcare
        • - Luminaries
        • - Top 25 Women Leaders
        • - Women to Watch
    • Events
      • Conferences
        • Transformation Summit
        • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
        • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
        • Leadership Symposium
      • Galas
        • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
        • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
        • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
        • Top 25 Diversity Leaders Gala
      • Virtual Briefings
        • - Hospital of the Future
        • - Value Based Care
        • - Supply Chain Revenue Cycle
        • - Hospital at Home
        • - Workplace of the Future
        • - Strategic Marketing
        • - Virtual Health
      • Webinars
    • Listen
      • Podcast - Next Up
      • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
      • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
      • Video Series - The Check Up
      • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • MORE +
      • Advertise
      • Media Kit
      • Newsletters
      • Jobs
      • People on the Move
      • Reprints & Licensing