Hill Briefing Encourages Expansion of Data’s Role in Healthcare
The Healthcare Leadership Council hosted a congressional briefing on utilizing data to achieve meaningful patient care results. The two expert panelists spoke to an engaged audience about the need to achieve the dual goals of privacy and data-driven innovation, and the power of information to enact change.
Kimberly Gray, J.D., the chief global privacy officer for IQVIA, discussed moving towards an accountability model in HIPAA and away from the consent model. She pointed out that many people have “consent fatigue” and simply sign all the forms they are given in healthcare settings without understanding what those forms entail. Accountability would safeguard information while taking the burden of consent away from the patients, with the exception of sharing sensitive data for purposes unrelated to the original intent. Ms. Gray stated that HIPAA’s creators were forward thinking and created robust privacy protections while enhancing data sharing for the public good.
David Levine, M.D., the group senior vice president of advanced analytics and product management for Vizient Inc., focused on how to use data to drive hospital performance. He clarified that hospital performance comparisons are only useful if they are apples to apples. There needs to be transparency about which hospitals are being compared, based on similar size and patient acuity. Meaningful data can be gleaned from these comparisons to develop a strategic path to improvement. He also noted the effectiveness of educating hospital staff on why metrics and scores are important and how each of them can impact patient satisfaction and improve hospital scores.
