Discover the revenue opportunities that data analytics provides and how to get your skin in the game.
Data is the new “gold,” and healthcare organizations are best positioned to reap benefits. The healthcare sector currently generates about a third of the world’s data volume annually. Estimates show that the figure will rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36%, reaching 10,800 exabytes by 2025. The proliferation of electronic health records (EHRs), medical imaging, and other digital healthcare information drives this trend.
While healthcare data is relatively untapped, things are changing. Forward-thinking companies leverage analytics to extract valuable insights for improved patient care, operational efficiency, and cost reduction. You should, too, if you want to stay competitive.
Read on to learn how to monetize revenue opportunities in healthcare with data analytics.
Monetization Strategies for Healthcare Data
Healthcare data monetization is harnessing the patient data available to your organization for tangible economic benefits. You can use an indirect, direct, or mixed strategy to monetize data.
Indirect monetization creates revenue streams without data ever leaving the organization. The goal is to tap data analytics to improve internal processes, services, or products and drive the bottom line.
A good example is leveraging anonymized and aggregated patient data to develop population health management tools or clinical decision support systems. These help identify public health trends, individuals at risk of chronic diseases, and signs of patient deterioration, allowing for early, targeted intervention.
On the other hand, direct monetization involves selling data for profit to external stakeholders, either in its raw form or packaging it into actionable insights.
One opportunity here is trading anonymized data insights in return for data enrichment services or performance benchmarking. This is a common practice healthcare providers use to identify areas for improvement.
Additionally, you can sell data outright to pharmaceutical companies to aid drug discovery and clinical trials or leverage a federated platform where data movement is limited.
Direct monetization is quite lucrative, but it is also fraught with controversy and complexity. To maximize its benefits, one must work within the boundaries of applicable regulatory and legal considerations.
Unlocking Value Through Data Analytics
Analytics provides a holistic view of the organization and its patients that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. It lets you make sense of raw information to predict disease outbreaks, optimize resource utilization, reduce costs, and much more.
Let’s break that down:
- Predicting outbreaks: Analytics identifies trends in current and historical data, helping predict disease outbreaks and adequately prepare for them. For example, it’s possible to forecast precisely when a flu outbreak will occur, how severe it will be, and which geographic locations will be most impacted. Similarly, you can spot patterns that suggest the onset of an illness among patients and intervene earlier with personalized treatment.
- Optimizing resource allocation: Analytics lets you track all the moving parts of your healthcare network simultaneously, in real time, to keep everything streamlined. You can leverage patient admissions data to predict future trends and ensure you have enough hospital beds and staffing when patients arrive. That way, patients receive timely care, and your workforce doesn’t burn out.
- Reducing healthcare costs: Healthcare providers operate on thinner financial margins than ever. Analytics changes the game by allowing you to pinpoint inefficiencies and implement strategies to improve economic performance.
For example, patient data analysis can reveal trends that lead to hospital readmissions, such as insufficient patient education, poor post-discharge follow-up, or medication errors. You can then use the insights to develop targeted interventions, such as patient education programs, medication reconciliation, or improved discharge planning. Plus, data analysis can reveal areas where preventative care could reduce hospital stays and further trim operation and IT costs.
Another way analytics reduces cost is by helping you streamline inventory management, which ensures that no medical supplies go to waste.
Let’s explore how to unlock value responsibly.
Navigating Privacy and Compliance Concerns
As you harness patients’ data with analytics, you must do it in a manner that respects their privacy and strictly adheres to relevant regulations like HIPAA and GDPR.
That starts with transparency. Explain how you intend to use patient data—including whether you’ll share it with third parties—and obtain consent beforehand. That way, you can reuse the data multiple times and in different ways while retaining its utility.
Data anonymization and de-identification are also crucial. One concern healthcare organizations usually have here is that removing information from a data set may reduce its value. The good news is that anonymized and de-identified data is often still valid for most healthcare applications.
That said, there are two approaches you can use. One is to obfuscate the data before sharing it with third parties. The other is to provide federated or swam access where regulatory, legal, and ethical restrictions limit data movement. Here, you analyze data within your secure on-premise or cloud environment without transferring it to other institutions.
Admittedly, ethically unlocking the value of healthcare data is complex. That’s why having a reliable partner to help you chart a way forward is so valuable. Enter Core BTS.
Core BTS: Your Partner in Ethical Data Monetization
Core BTS is a digital transformation consultancy that helps forward-thinking healthcare organizations push boundaries with data for the greatest good.
Our expertise includes:
- Developing data monetization strategies aligned with organizational goals.
- Implementing secure data analytics platforms and infrastructure.
- Ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations and best practices.
- Providing robust data de-identification and anonymization solutions.
That means we can meet you where you are with your monetization journey and help you move forward in control. You already have the gold. Now, let us help you glean meaningful insights from your treasure trove of data.
Contact Core BTS to start unlocking the full potential of your data assets.
