Dr Karen van Caulil Discusses the Importance of Data Sharing

Healthcare informatics have improved education programs and initiatives as patient data becomes more open. However, data should be more widely shared, especially between employers and clinical providers, in order to better eliminate barriers to care access, said Karen van Caulil, PhD, president and CEO of the Florida Health Care Coalition.

Transcript (slightly modified)

How have healthcare informatics altered patient care in the last few years?

Sure, it’s really a big field, and we’ve been able to have a better handle on whether patients are receiving evidence-based treatment. We’ve been able to look closely at utilization, overutilization, underutilization, are folks getting to primary care, are they staying out of the emergency room when they could go elsewhere. So it’s really been very helpful in targeting education programs and initiatives, but there’s a lot more that we can do.

We don’t have full participation and data-sharing, we certainly don’t have transparency on the complete cost of care. Everything’s kind of siloed. All the major stakeholders have their own data and they keep it kind of close to the vest, and, unfortunately, each is missing an important part. You know, as an employer you really have claims data but you don’t have clinical data. And then the clinical providers don’t have that claims piece to be able to see what the employer is paying, but also what that consumer is paying for healthcare. And as more of the benefit design pushes the cost to the individual that’s really causing some barriers to accessing care.

So if we can get everybody to pool data at a community level I think we could come together in a more powerful way using the tools in health informatics.