Why Data-Driven Healthcare Is the Best Defense Against COVID-19

Why Data-Driven
Healthcare Is the
Best Defense
Against COVID-19
Health Catalyst Editors

© 2021 Health Catalyst
Proprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
Why Data-Driven Healthcare Is the
Best Defense Against COVID-19
Since COVID-19 became a global focal
point in the late winter and early spring of
2020, data has been an indispensable
tool in response and recovery,
particularly in the healthcare sector.
Health systems, researchers, and
policymakers have leveraged data to
drive critical decisions from short-term
emergency response to long-term
recovery planning and vaccine studies.

Five Ways Data-Driven Healthcare Enables a
Robust COVID-19 Response and Recovery
While data has supported and improved COVID-19 response and recovery
in innumerable ways, five areas stand out for their robust use of data and
measurable impact on the course of the outbreak and the individuals and
frontline providers most affected:
Scaling the
Hospital
Command
Center to
Pandemic
Proportions
1
Meeting
Patient Surge
Demands on
Hospital
Capacity
2
Controlling
Disease
Spread
3
Fueling
Global
Research
4
Responding
to Financial
Strain
5

#1: Scaling the Hospital Command Center to Pandemic Proportions
Hospital command center leaders have
never had to run an incident response on
the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whereas a typical emergency event (e.g.,
flooding, earthquakes, multivehicle
collisions, or shootings) causes rapid patient
influx with an identifiable starting and
stopping point, mostly requiring only basic
data and analytics for impact forecasting,
the novel coronavirus has had an ongoing,
inestimable impact on operations.

#1: Scaling the Hospital Command Center to Pandemic Proportions
The extensive duration combined with high
transmission risks and massive scope of
COVID-19 has demanded that health systems
prepare for more complex facility, equipment,
and staffing needs than leaders and team
members have trained in or experienced.
Successful organizations have used compre-
hensive, accurate, and accessible data to scale
their response around the areas of highest
pandemic impact: clinical capacity, equipment,
and staffing.

#2: Meeting Patient Surge Demands on Hospital Capacity
Health system resource strain became
an urgent concern early in the COVID-19
pandemic.
Hard-hit areas exhausted their hospital
beds, ventilators, personal protective
equipment, staffing, and other life-saving
essentials, while other regions scrambled
to prepare for inevitable surges.
These resource concerns heightened the
need for accurate, localized, data-informed
hospital capacity planning.

#2: Meeting Patient Surge Demands on Hospital Capacity
Capacity forecasting leverages operational,
clinical, and population health data to predict
a patient surge and its demand on resources.
This foresight allows planners to design and
implement mitigation strategies that can
prevent disastrous pandemic resource strain
and save patient lives.

#3: Controlling Disease Spread
Because COVID-19 appears to spread mainly
through respiratory droplets from person-to-
person contact (e.g., coughs, sneezes, or
speech), knowing where infected patients
have been and with whom they’ve been in
contact is vital.
For health systems, patient and staff contact
tracing is one of the top transmission-control
and life-saving strategies.

With this insight, organizations can manage
transmission with data-driven emergency planning
and monitoring capabilities.
Contact tracing aligns existing patient flow data
(from manual tracking) with potential staff exposure
indicators from the clinical record, such as which
parts of the facility the patient entered and the
types of treatments or testing they underwent.

This process provides analytic insights
surrounding patient movement and
interactions between staff and patients with
either a confirmed or suspected infection.
These data can then encourage informed
and timely action.

#4: Fueling Global Research
Incomplete, non-transparent, and out-of-date
COVID-19 data has been one of the main
barriers to understanding and managing the
virus nationally and abroad, as well as
developing a vaccine.
In addition to driving COVID-19 under-
standing within the United States, data from a
national disease registry informs research
beyond U.S. borders.

Clinicians with the Singapore Ministry of
Healthcare’s (MOH) Office for Healthcare
Transformation (MOHT) have used the Health
Catalyst Touchstone® COVID-19 Registry
and Insights to develop a machine learning
tool that helps predict the likelihood of
COVID-19 mortality.
With this national data set that leverages
deep aggregated EHR data, the MOHT
accessed the research-grade data needed to
build a machine-learning algorithm that
predicts the risk of death from COVID-19.

The registry-informed prediction model was
accurate enough to stand up to comparisons
in the published literature and promises to
help inform vaccine research and, ultimately,
allocation of vaccines within populations.

#5: Responding to Financial Strain
COVID-19 has made traditional, historical-data
financial methodologies obsolete and highlighted
the imperative for health systems to create a
new, effective financial emergency response.
Organizations can get back on the road to
financial recovery and well-being and prepare
for future obstacles by practicing three key
strategies centered around data:
1. Prioritize access to real-time data.
2. Understand data at a deeper level.
3. Realize margin and cost by service line.

Data-Driven Healthcare Proves Its Value
Healthcare’s journey to becoming data
driven has often been fraught, with
difficulties ranging from sunk costs to
clinician burnout and more.
With COVID-19, digitization has proven
its value on the global stage: data-first
organizations have most effectively and
safely delivered care while navigating
financial strains, while accessible,
shareable data has been critical to
disease management and prevention
research, ultimately saving patient lives

For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
Why Data-Driven Healthcare Is the Best Defense Against COVID-19
Shifting to Virtual Care in the COVID-19 Era: Analytics for Financial Success and an Optimized Patient
Experience - Health Catalyst Editors
Reduce Bad Debt: Four Tactics to Limit Exposure During COVID-19
Marlowe Dazley, Senior VPand Managing Director of Financial Advisory Services
A Sustainable Healthcare Emergency Management Framework: COVID-19 and Beyond
Holly Rimmasch, Chief Clinical Officer; Ed Corbett, MD, Medical Officer;
Anne Marie Bickmore, Senior VP, Company Operations
Six Proven Methods to Combat COVID-19 with Real-World Analytics
Four Strategies Drive High-Value Healthcare Analytics for COVID-19 Recovery

Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing, analytics and outcomes-improvement
company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes improve clinical, financial, and operational
outcomes needed to improve population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data
warehouse (EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in
support of more than 65 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system
to forward-thinking physician practices.
Health Catalyst was recently named as the leader in the enterprise healthcare BI market in
improvement by KLAS, and has received numerous best-place-to work awards including Modern
Healthcare in 2013, 2014, and 2015, as well as other recognitions such as “Best Place to work for
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Why Data-Driven Healthcare Is the Best Defense Against COVID-19

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Why Data-Driven Healthcare Is the Best Defense Against COVID-19