Big Data, Big Challenge

I just finished up a 3-day Lean Six Sigma course at work. One of the primary things we discussed was actually looking at the outcomes of the process in question. For most industries, checking out your data probably isn't too hard, but for health care.... it's a different story. A lot of hospitals don't have the infrastructure to report all of their quality outcomes (perhaps only a selected few that are mandated for certain populations). So, it can be the case there is essentially very little data to look at, with any amount of ease. The persistent use of paper charts, capital investments required to coordinate clinical data in one place, and the skill and buy-in needed from all involved prevent hospitals and health systems from being able to meaningfully look inside their data. However, some organizations are finding ways to overcome those hurdles.

Cleveland Clinic publishes "Outcome Books" for each of their institutes. (Described here: From: The Healthcare Blog: Five Lessons in Transparency from Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove). Inside you will find statistics regarding frequency of diseases and procedures, comparative data (over time), as well as written descriptions and analyses. Now, ideally, every hospital would publish the same set of data and consumers would be able to make an educated decision about where to obtain their specific medical treatment... however, this is not the case.

Take a look: Outcome Books

Imagine the incredible success an organization would have if it was able to peer inside it's data, pair this with a blameless culture that focuses on fixing failing processes, and fix what isn't working. Everyone wins. The patient wins because they are getting the best possible treatment. Employees win because they are empowered to make changes, and they aren't afraid of getting blamed when a process they are involved in fails. The industry wins because best practices can be identified, and shared. Move over Charlie Sheen, because we just redefined #winning.

As we all sit around our dinner tables and talk about how to fix health care, I suggest we start with an examination of our current outcomes. How can healthcare organizations expect to improve if they don't even fully understand what is happening in their ORs, or recovery rooms, or their patient's homes. Understanding the 30-day readmission rate is one thing, but understanding a patient's 5-year survival rate after X procedure is another challenge altogether.With registries, we can achieve that-- and we can finally give patients the information they want when making critical life decisions (ie: what is my life going to look like after X procedure?). There is so much value that can be tapped if we just get all of our information in one place, with one reporting structure on top of it.