Navigating data challenges to engage patients + personalize care — 3 roundtable takeaways

During an interactive session at Becker's Payer Issues Roundtable, two leaders from Medecision — Sam Abraham, senior vice president of corporate development and channel partnerships, and Terri Steinberg, MD, chief strategy officer and chief medical officer — led a discussion with healthcare leaders on data acquisition and use in healthcare.

They focused on personalization, direct to consumer engagement and how data can be acquired to foster that goal.

Dr. Steinberg opened the conversation, noting 30% of the world's data is generated by healthcare systems, and how there has been a surge in data companies claiming to be AI vendors. Participants touched on the use of social determinants of health (SDOH) data, with one participant sharing their experience integrating SDOH data with claims data to identify opportunities to advance health equity. Leaders also shared challenges they're facing in collecting and acting on this data, sharing it across different systems and tracking patient touch points over time. Mr. Abraham concluded the session with a successful use case where data was leveraged to manage a behavioral health cohort and reduce repeat emergency room visits.

Editor's note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Key takeaways:

1. Large volumes of healthcare data represent an opportunity for organizations to make meaningful changes in patients' lives and business operations.
   
   Terri Steinberg, MD: "The fact of the matter is, data is part of everybody's workflow — every system. What you do with it is really the differentiator."
   
   
2. Health-related data that lives in non-healthcare databases holds valuable insights into patients' concerns and preferences.
   
   TS: "About 90% of patients use Google for information about one or more conditions. So when you think about the data that's tied up in the Google search engine database, it's pretty remarkable. And that doesn't even address things like social media — Instagram and X and all of the other sources that can tell us a lot about our patients."
   
   
3. Integrating and utilizing data effectively is a challenge for healthcare organizations.
   
   Sam Abraham: "There are three components many organizations are trying to solve: One is, how do you make sure you get the right type of data? Then, how do you determine what to do with that data — what are those gaps you can determine from there? And lastly, how do you close the loop?"