International health systems are exploring how to use data to support digital transformation toward connected care. This blog offers key takeaways from a multi-stakeholder roundtable with the Danish Ministry of Health, Danish regions, municipalities, physician associations, Health Innovation Manchester, and the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science.
Advancing toward a more connected, cohesive healthcare system requires using the right data and insights for the right patients to overcome challenges in the patient journey across sectors and to improve quality of care, patient satisfaction, and efficiency of care delivery. However, the first step should always be to define the problems needed to be solved and determine whether the right data is available or new evidence will need to be generated to support change. Ultimately, moving toward more connected models, such as healthcare clusters across sectors, will require utilizing digital technologies to advance the sharing of data and the redesign of workflows and patient care.
These were among the key points during an international, multi-stakeholder virtual roundtable titled, Data-Driven Quality in Connected Health and Social Care, held on September 14, 2021, which was convened by the Danish regions and had participation of the Danish Ministry of Health, the National Association of Municipalities, the Danish Medical Association, the Organization of General Practitioners, Health Innovation Manchester, UK, and the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science.
The backdrop for the roundtable is the current movement in Denmark toward establishing cross-sectoral healthcare clusters. According to an agreement among the Danish government, the Danish regions, and the National Association of Municipalities of June 11, 2021, healthcare clusters will be established around the 21 acute hospitals to create more connected care and services for citizens across hospitals, municipal social care, and primary physician care. The strengthening of healthcare clusters is part of a national strategy to address the challenges with a growing population of elderly people and the rise in chronic diseases in order to reduce the pressures on hospitals and put more emphasis on treatment and care in the primary care sector and the home.
The agreement stipulates the need to advance the sharing of data and insights across sectors, i.e., hospital and specialist care, general practice, and municipal care.
As Denmark prepares the establishment and formalization of the healthcare clusters by July 1, 2022, there has been growing interest in learning from international experiences with connected healthcare approaches and the use of data and digital technology to support the transformation toward a more cohesive healthcare system.
Therefore, the roundtable was convened by the Danish Regions with participation of Health Innovation Manchester, the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, and multiple Danish stakeholders representing the different Danish Regions, the National Association of Municipalities, medical and patient associations.
Health Innovation Manchester brought to the discussion experiences from building a Smart, Connected Health Care System to improve the health and well-being of the 2.8 million people in Greater Manchester. Health Innovation Manchester is leveraging digital, operational, and business transformation across hospitals, general practice, and municipalities to create connected health and social care and to deliver a seamless experience for citizens. As part of the digital transformation, traditional systems have been converted into digital formats, and care has been wrapped around the needs of citizens and services joined by sharing records and data across settings.
The IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science provided a perspective about improving human health outcomes through data and analytics to address the need for an integrated approach to linking and connecting disparate data sources. Human Data Science integrates the study of human science with breakthroughs in data science and technology to advance understanding of human health and thus enable stakeholders to make better, more insightful decisions to advance health outcomes. The goal is not simply to connect data, but to create new insights that help overcome the challenges in healthcare, rethink how care is delivered, and validate the outcomes of interventions to improve health outcomes.
The discussions at the roundtable generated a number of key points:
Beyond data
Sharing of data
“Big data is exciting, but it also presents unique challenges. Data is often not clean, it is mostly unstructured, incomplete, inconsistent, and subject to local variability. New technologies and registries also provide additional sources of data. And there are specific challenges when the data extends beyond one institution and encompasses social care or home care in addition to traditional healthcare settings. We also have an acceleration of human clinical data, but the advances in human science have been somewhat disconnected from the advances in data science. Therefore, we see an urgent need for a new approach that we call Human Data Science that integrates the study of human science with breakthroughs in data science and technology, which advances our understanding of human health to enable better and more insightful decisions and has the potential to close the gaps in research, patient care, and health system performance.
Murray Aitken
Executive Director, IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science
Defining the problems first
Developing a clinical framework
Improving data quality
Collaborating around data
Digital transformation is critically important
“You need to be really clear about the problem you are trying to solve and decide how much technology you are going to apply to address the problem. By using technology in the right way, the effect at the population-level can be enormous. This is more than data-driven healthcare, this needs to be technology-driven healthcare, where we see data and analytics as a component of digital in its widest context. However, digital doesn’t change anything unless you get operating model transformation. This is about changing the way you do things, which is made possible through digital. Using technology, you can get better and more efficient care, but to do that you need to transform your operating model and your business model.”
Ben Bridgewater
CEO, Health Innovation Manchester
Cultural change
“The healthcare clusters will not be a success unless the clinical frontline people take ownership. How do we get the frontline people on board? We need to look at the current patient pathways all the way from diagnosis to rehab, identify and separate the data, and use them in a structured way in order to generate insights about how we can improve the care and experience for patients.”
Erik Jylling
Executive Vice President, Danish Regions
Manpower and resources
Unique opportunities in Denmark
The successful implementation of healthcare clusters in Denmark will depend on a number of key factors, including:
The future is bright when healthcare systems move from a fragmented to a more connected, integrated model that utilizes data sharing and digital transformation to advance collaboration between healthcare and social care and across hospitals, primary physician care, and municipalities.