Salman Shahid, CMO for DevBatch.
Using healthcare data infrastructure helps you understand vast amounts of health data and achieve breakthroughs in the healthcare industry.
Simply put, data infrastructure includes software, hardware, and strategic resources (legal guidelines) for the handling, storage and use of data. Having the right data infrastructure is important for healthcare institutions who want to integrate technology.
Read on to learn how to develop healthcare data infrastructure for improved patient care, streamlined operations, and reduced daily costs.
1. Start with industry research.
Before developing your healthcare data infrastructure, check what your local hospitals are already building. Take a closer look and determine whether infrastructure improves patient outcomes and operational efficiency.
You can identify gaps by looking at the performance of various systems. Addressing these gaps (e.g., technology, regulatory, or workflow-related) based on your specific needs allows you to build an infrastructure that is more suited to your organization.
Use a data infrastructure expert to review your findings. This collaboration will help you see if your insights are valid and help you develop an informed plan.
2. Create a practical plan.
When developing a data infrastructure for healthcare, the first task is thorough planning and design. This helps to avoid costly missteps. Strategic planning involves identifying organizational needs, conducting market research and ensuring regulatory compliance.
• Identify your needs.
Start by outlining the challenges you are facing. Whether your goal is to improve patient care or discover new treatments, your needs determine how to design your infrastructure.
• Perform market research.
Assess current weaknesses in how data is stored, organized and accessed. Starting with market research, we conduct SWOT analysis to identify areas that need improvement.
•Ensure regulatory compliance.
Develop user-friendly guidelines for clear regulatory policies and data access. Transparency – Prevents data misuse through proprietary standards and external regulations such as HIPAA.
3. Ensure seamless development.
Development of healthcare data infrastructure involves selecting the right database type, selecting support technologies, and adopting efficient processes. Start by understanding the core components of your data system.
Relational database: Perfect for structured onsite data with fast query capabilities
Unrelated databases: Perfect for managing large amounts of data with a flexible cloud-first model
Whatever your database is, check for seamless integration. An integration strategy, also known as data standardization, is a system that can combine, share, and analyze data between sources.
Standardization makes merging data from multiple sources easier and more effective. It also makes information accessible and understandable across stakeholder audiences.
Security is prioritized to protect your data from unauthorized access. A strong security plan can help prevent data breaches, losses, and corruption.
Once you have implemented the database, standardization protocols, and protection strategies, you will proceed through four important phases:
Pilot Test: Trials used to identify areas of improvement
•User Training: Practical Training for Key Stakeholders
•Compliance: Adopting legal and regulatory frameworks
• Startup and Deployment: Official Infrastructure Development for Daily Operations
4. Focus on support and maintenance.
Continuous improvement is essential after starting your healthcare data infrastructure. Collect and evaluate user feedback to ensure that the system remains effective and responsive. Easily incorporate relevant suggestions and gather feedback to enable a continuous cycle of improvement.
Development of infrastructure is challenging, but active monitoring and improvement is required to maintain high performance.
A feedback loop from customer reviews to staff inputs welcomes you to identify opportunities for improvement and enhancement. Implementing these data points enables data-driven decisions and improves the performance of your healthcare data infrastructure.
5. Work with industry experts.
The healthcare sector has long relied on collaboration, particularly in post-pandemic landscapes. To optimize your infrastructure, build strategic partnerships with federal organizations and industry leaders.
These collaborations provide insight into operational efficiency and benchmarking, helping to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the financial performance of your data infrastructure.
Monitoring the capabilities of your data infrastructure with expert input can help you achieve long-term success. Guidance from experienced partners can also support scaling, expansion and funding initiatives.
Simply put, collaboration offers a huge advantage. From enhancing the patient experience to discover faster drug discovery and improving the quality of medical services.
Build for the future!
A robust healthcare data infrastructure helps you organize and interpret the vast amount of information generated daily.
A well-designed, unique system ensures that data is not only kept well organized, but also keeps it accessible and easy to understand. Follow this five-stage plan to build a data infrastructure that enhances better patient care and drives research innovation.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Are you qualified?
