In 2015, we are in a challenging but interesting environment for health care data.
Currenty, I am the director of informatics for a translational institute for a large healthcare system outside of Washington, D.C. Our team was tasked with creating unique data and an IT architecture to support our translational research initiatives. We are gathering a combination of clinical, molecular and environmental data and leveraging it to treat our patients as individuals and give them the best care possible.
This is a very challenging task on many levels. This column will focus on the IT technology aspect of the equation. I will leave the clinical and scientific challenges to the true stars of our initiatives.
When I began my career in life sciences and health data five years ago, many of today’s technologies were not yet available to health care systems. Hadoop, cloud computing, Big Data, Hadoop, and personal wearables were only used in larger, more advanced research environments. These technologies were considered fringe technologies back then and weren’t part of many hospital IT plans.
Now, cloud technologies are at the very minimum part of the conversation.
A company was demonstrating a data service solution for hospital leaders. I was there. The presenter started to get nervous about 10 minutes into her sales pitch. Her speech speed increased and her face became more tense. Even her voice became defensive. She was about to speak on the infrastructure component of their solution, which was cloud-based, just seconds earlier. She was expecting resistance.
This is not surprising, and I have seen it in multiple presentations to my team. This is a major obstacle that cloud-based companies face when trying to sell to traditional health care systems. We have been cloud services users for over four years and quickly gathered the information we needed in order to make an informed decision. Just like our on-premises systems, our team evaluates cloud-based services on their security and capability.
My team and I use cloud services in many forms today. We make extensive use Amazon Web Services (AWS). We signed our HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with AWS in late 2014. A BAA is a contract between HIPAA-covered entities and HIPAA business partners that protects personal health information in compliance with HIPAA guidelines. Our on-premises infrastructure and AWS are used to allow our clinicians and researchers to use data and support IT systems more efficiently. Our teams are able to access high-quality data faster, which allows them to collaborate with other scientists, write papers, and discover new things. faster. This will result in better treatment for our patients.
We believe IT and informatics are key enablers for improving the speed and quality research. We can also drive down business costs, which means more money for research and technology.
Many of us in the health system are struggling to manage large and highly variable data sets. The cloud can help IT departments provide the services they need. But, implementing newer IT technologies quickly has never been an advantage for health care systems. Patients’ care is a top priority, and with good reason. Implementations that could jeopardize the reputations of hospitals and patients’ lives by switching to new technologies are not justified due to the perceived risk. There are exceptions. However, traditional health care organizations still hesitate to use newer technologies. We are one of those exceptions.
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