By: Dexter Braff
If you think that the future of healthcare lies in delivering “the right care, to the right person, at the right time, in the right setting,” you’d be, well, right…up to a point.
But you’d be missing the proviso that at the heart of it all lies a geek.
Fueled by Red Bull and Doritos and wielding algorithms like light sabers, these Java Jedis are sifting through billions of bytes of claims data and demographics to figure out what you thought your doctor already knew: the best way to make you well vs. the best way to wring out revenues, leapfrog a lawsuit, or reluctantly play payor delay-ball until you move to another plan (or a better place).
So last week, they convened in Washington, D.C. for Datapalooza 2017, an event whose name perfectly captures the enormity of the challenge and the innovative thinking that it requires.
We could try to summarize the proceedings, but that would be like getting Sheldon to knock on Penny’s door without saying her name three times — impossible.
So here are just a few things overheard at Datapalooza 2017:
On the status of health care reform, from Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price?
Crickets.
While delivering inspiring and heartfelt remarks (really) about the critical role data will play in taking aim at the triple aim, Secretary Price stayed as far away from health care reform as Sheldon and germs.
Algorithms, Interoperability, and Analytics, oh my: Suffice to say that if you had a transcript of the proceedings with these three words redacted, it might fit on an IBM punch card.
Most pithy phrase summing up the challenge facing the industry: “In health care, there’s an ocean of data and only a puddle of information.”
Most unlikely description of raw data: “Pre-masticated.” Yum.
Viva La Liberation! Apparently data yearns to be free. While not quite as ubiquitous as algorithms, et al, the flags were waving for data liberation – the accumulation and submission of data sets to public repositories so that they can be sliced, diced, and, well, masticated.
And finally, the most amusing word mashup: In a particularly interesting session on developing “actionable” data from grading providers’ performance, one of the presenters emphasized the need for real time analytics vs. that drawn from data 6-12 months old.
To wit, he quipped “what good is it for a provider to find out, six months after the fact, their level of ‘suckitude.’ ”
You gotta love Datapalooza.