#BizTrends2018: Five data trends that are influencing healthcare

Sunil Kenth

Sunil Kenth, presales manager at Qlik MEA has identified several trends that are affecting the healthcare environment and its providers.

Improvements in efficiency and cost

South Africa, like the rest of the world, is focusing on how payments are being made for healthcare services, while also focusing on quality and outcomes, population health, prevention, greater transparency and how public money is spent.

Predictive analytics

Health systems around the world are now seeing the massive potential predictive analytics has to offer to improve processes and patient care. From predicting patient activity in the emergency room, to length of stay in paediatric care, this technology is a key part of the analytics future in health.

The inability to integrate data from multiple sources

In order to have insights into your operations, it is often necessary to juxtapose various data sources to yield a new key performance indicator. Without these insights, it becomes difficult to make data-driven decisions.

Data governance

There is a big focus on data analytical products that have a quick turnaround but healthcare providers could be running the risk of ungoverned data decision-making. Without government best-practice guidelines or benchmarks (for example length of stay), information can be misinterpreted.

Visualisation

The ability to easily access data.