This summer, Carolinas
HealthCare System made the news rounds as a warning of the new levels of data
mining available to healthcare companies. In Hospitals Are Mining Patients' Credit Card
Data to Predict Who Will Get Sick, we get a very Big Brother type of picture of the
invasiveness of such data mining with an illustrative picture showing a doctor
saying, “Don’t lie to me, Susan, I know about the 2 a.m. Papa John’s
deliveries.”
It makes for dramatic copy, but it’s still in
the realm of fiction rather than fact, as I found our when I contacted Carolinas HealthCare and got a
response from Jason Schneider, Director, Clinical PR. He explained that the
article “focused on how providers could use data for in the future and didn't
include details what data we are currently using and how we are using it.”
The
data they are currently using does not follow an individual’s consumer trail
but looks at things like socio-economic circles, neighborhood limitations, and
cultural affiliation that could shape one’s access to healthcare. One example of that was identifying why patients in one
particular area were not coming in for regular doctor’s visits. It turned out
that it didn’t have reliable public transportation to a doctor's office. After
identifying the geographic problem, Carolinas HealthCare set up a doctor in the
neighborhood itself.
As the person quoted in each of
the articles on Carolinas use of data is Dr.
Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer
for analytics and outcomes research at Carolinas, I contacted him and spoke
with him on the phone. He explained that Carolinas has a decade of experience
in using data to improve healthcare by identifying individuals within contexts
that could pose obstacles to care.
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