2012 Predictions: Big Data is King in Healthcare (Patient Privacy is its Jester)

As the New Year begins, I suspect we will first see more of the same: more market consolidation with larger hospitals eating smaller, financially’strapped hospitals and doctors throwing in the towels of financial independence in favor of corporate employment or retirement. 2011 was the year that cardiologists realized their practice rug was irreversibly pulled out from under them by a 2009 national ’stimulus package’ whose changes to payments for office based imaging services kicked in on 1 January. Private cardiologists were left with few options to maintain their incomes besides joining with larger hospital systems. It was that same 2009 legislation that provided funds for Electronic Medical Records that gave government-mandated data collection legs.

But the real effects of health care reform have yet to sink in. I expect healthier hospital systems will look for new ways to leverage their current financial largess with national name-brand centers of regulatory excellence to be maintain their public perception as ’cutting edge.’ With that, the use of data to improve clinical efficiencies while simultaneously using the data to market services will become 2012’s data-driven mantra...