Recent developments in the healthcare industry have meant that patient and disease specific data is now more important than ever. This is because EMRs backed by health information exchanges across the nation have simplified the exchange of lab reports, tests, scans, prescribed medication, patient clinical history and even billing related information. This has greatly streamlined the decision making process for clinicians because they have instant access to the relevant patient information, without having to wait or request information from different sources.

Most important, innovation in health IT has led to improved analysis and comparison of clinical information. Healthcare professionals are now able to extract information related to specific diseases, patient habits and clinical outcomes from different sources in a matter of seconds. The U.S government has been the strongest advocate of the usage of Electronic Medical Records to save cost and facilitate the scrutiny and analysis of healthcare information. This is understandable because the government can save money and lives by monitoring the information flowing through HIEs. They can determine patterns in diseases, social habits, rate of mortality, patient awareness, testing, care quality etc. to appropriate the allocation of resources.

Former President Bill Clinton in a recent talk for the 2013 HIMMS Annual Conference & Exhibition stressed on the benefits of technology used in healthcare and stated, "You all know information technology and how we manage it is critical", further stating that it could play a significant role in the betterment of the American people by giving them better access to health related information and data. According to the market research by the U.S Hospital Research Health Data Analytics, adoption of advanced data analytics in hospitals will grow to almost 50% by 2016 from a trivial 10% adoption rate in 2011.

One of the reasons why more and more hospitals are adopting newer technology is that it helps in reducing fraudulent activity. Frauds have been occurring and damaging hospitals for a very long time, so hospital administrators are spending their time and money to curtail such activities. Data Analytics and data mining reports can help health organizations stay on top of inefficient workflows, practices and ensure accountability through complex computer processes helping healthcare professionals and government bodies discover patterns in data through statistical comparison, machine learning and artificial intelligence tools.For More Information Feel Free to Contact Frank.roberts@curemd.com

Former President Clinton was not the only advocate of health information exchange through technology at the HIMMS conference, as Dr. Farzad Mostashari who is the National Coordinator for Health IT of the ONC explained that the acquisition of data through electronic means has the ability to reveal what is hidden by gathering and analyzing data at a tremendous pace and scale which would never be possible using a system which is based on paper. He stressed that it reduces the number of assumptions made and replaces them with facts, which follows with the eradication of inefficiencies and benchmark standards to be established.

Conclusively, the proper use of data analytics can change the healthcare industry and take it to a higher level of efficiency. As Dr. Mostashari eloquently suggests, "Intelligent use of data can fix a broken healthcare system".