‘Bring your own data’ is the next trend in healthcare

With the rapid popularity of wearables like fitbits and smartwatches, anyone today can track their own health, thus providing more information on one’s own health before stepping into the doctor’s office. With this new technology and information, clinicians will need new resources to better analyze a patient’s health and medical records. The American Hospital Association (AHA) recently published an article stating patient-generated data and customized services are top among the areas where healthcare organizations are investing in innovation today, aiming to improve patient experience. Clinicians will need to be able to parse content from a variety of sources and formats. “I expect there to be software that would be a combination of natural language processing with monitored and unmonitored algorithms to identify themes to track by disease and specialty,” said Anupam Goel, chief medical information officer for Advocate Health Care. “The clinician would rely on the software to minimize errors – data unintentionally included or unintentionally excluded.” Healthcare professionals will have to better ready themselves for this new data source since this consumer movement will continue and grow as patients gain greater and quicker access to their information.