It’s all about the data. In a recent study, researchers found that when it comes to electronic health records the amount of “big data” is enormous. A McKinsey Global Health Institute study found that digitizing, monitoring and applying analytics to the U.S. healthcare system would increase efficiencies and potentially reduce costs by $200-$300 billion dollars – essentially decreasing expenditures by 8 percent.

Adopting a comprehensive approach to using big data would help reduce redundancies and eliminate unnecessary costs. For instance:

• Implementing pay-per-performance business models would reduce fee-for-service incentives that have traditionally encouraged unnecessary visits, higher fees and lower-quality service.
• Fraudulent activity would be tracked and identified in real time, helping to reduce abuse of the Medicare and Medicaid systems.
• Improvements in the health records management process would help streamline billing systems, reducing bookkeeping inefficiencies for providers and clients, which in turn would reduce administrative costs.
• Access to population data helps decision making, potentially reducing diagnostic and prescription errors. Deploying a system that can access and manage big data can even help predict risk and encourage more personalized care.
• Monitoring big data along with electronic health records aids bio-surveillance and disease outbreak prevention – improving patient communications regarding health behaviors and related consequences.

Utilizing big data in conjunction with electronic healthcare records offers many cost-reducing benefits throughout the healthcare industry but the ultimate benefit is the ability of professionals to provide personalized care to patients.