Since the new year, COVID-19 has created many challenges within the global healthcare community. One of the biggest challenges will be to improve how healthcare data is handled to communicate effectively between healthcare systems. COVID-19 has allowed professionals to see the strengths and weaknesses of the healthcare system. There has not been nearly enough information to understand how patients have been treated during this pandemic. This has resulted in lack of data for medical professionals to study and use in the future. With technology changing every day before our eyes, it’s safe to say that this will play a large role in the improvement of healthcare data.

 

Brian Dixon of the Regenstrief Institute who acts as a liaison between the Indiana Health Information Exchange and other universities has watched IT leaders bring together projects in a short period. The Regenstrief Institute has shifted their focus to applying analytics and advanced techniques in data analysis. This could result in identifying diseases earlier in the process. In the future, Dixon stated that the institute plans on figuring out a way they can give information to physicians, health system administrators and the public. 

 

Healthcare officials began eyeing EHR optimization to help manage the pandemic as systems all around the world were almost at their full capacity. Pop-up field hospitals were opened in major cities to accommodate all of those infected. With there being so many hospitals and private practices, it becomes hard for information to be exchanged between different EHR. 

Many places are hesitant to change their EHR system due to the amount of time that goes into it but with an integrated system data can be changed for the better.

 

With the right IT leaders and technology, healthcare data can be improved for many years to come. By improving the integration of EHR, data can be organized and shared more than ever. One of the greatest accomplishments would be finding ways to make data accessible to people in the communities of where a disease or illness may be spreading. As COVID-19 continues to spread, there is time to keep working on ways to improve the spread of data. During the recovery phase of this pandemic is when IT leaders can out their ideas and techniques to work.