We asked Alliant’s Analytics Practice Leader, Doug Levit, for his thoughts on the current and future state of healthcare data and what it means for employers. Here’s what he had to say.
What are the biggest challenges employers are experiencing around healthcare data?
One of the biggest challenges we are seeing stems around integrated access to data. Optimally managing a health plan today may involve working with multiple vendors — one for medical, another for pharmacy, another for biometrics, case management, and so on. Each vendor has insight into the data they manage but the employer is left with snapshots of individual trees without a clear picture of the forest, if you will.
Integration of data from these disparate sources is critical in enabling employers to effectively manage their total healthcare program. There are too many opportunities missed by employers who don’t understand the full scope of their healthcare data.
What data trends are you seeing that may help or hinder employers?
I’d say the amount of available data is both a hindrance and a help to employers. As far as being a hindrance, the sheer volume of available data can be overwhelming. All of your member data can be available at your fingertips, but understanding how to organize that data and draw conclusions from the data takes a dedicated team of people with backgrounds in data science, healthcare, clinical management, and pharmaceuticals. While the expectations are that all of this available data will get utilized; the opportunities for misinterpreting the data are considerable.
At the same time, having access to the data and the right people and tools to aid in filtering and interpreting that data can lead to extraordinary insights. These insights can shed light on past cost drivers and on the most effective forward-looking strategies to achieve an employer’s financial and workforce goals and objectives.
What is the most important consideration around data for employers?
It’s imperative that employers not only understand their data, but also own their data. You must own it in order to make decisions that are based on your actual data sets and not anecdotal assumptions. Never make any decision that isn’t supported by the data you have access to — whether it’s vendor selection, care management, even how you communicate your benefits to your employees.
A quote popular with actuaries is, “The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions. – John Ruskin.” Ultimately, as a practice, this is our goal when it comes to helping our clients replace assumptions and beliefs with actionable data-driven analysis.
