The most important first step in fixing US healthcare: Data accessibility

Whether you call it—“population health,” “digital health” or “value-based care”—the way to fix U.S. healthcare is to build a system that focuses on keeping people healthy rather than treating them only after they get sick.

This is harder than it sounds. First, we have to understand the health status of a population and determine who in that population is on a trajectory towards becoming sick. Then we must engage with those people to help them avoid getting sick or—if that’s not possible—get them to the right level of care at the right time.

Each step requires data: data to understand the population, data to see what interventions work and when they are best applied, and data to measure and continuously optimize the system. Seems so simple. But unfortunately, limited access to this data makes it anything but.

Read on fiercehealthcare.com