Every Kiwi understands the importance of better health outcomes, and its value is indisputable. Given the health sector's complexity and scale, the real question is how we reach this objective. 

• Does it require the discovery of even more amazing pharmaceuticals and surgical techniques?
• Does everyone need to adopt healthier lifestyles, better eating habits, more exercise, ice baths and the like?
• Or is it just a question of investment, by additional funding for greater access, lower insurance premiums, and cheaper treatments?

While all these will help in the long run, today’s information age provides a more immediate opportunity that can significantly impact health outcomes today, secure data sharing.

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Today’s healthcare data silos form a barrier 

Healthcare data today is spread across a labyrinth of disconnected silos. 

Let’s start with individual health records, where a holistic view of one’s full medical history is the foundation for preventative or reactive care. Personal medical histories span multiple care providers - and many of these sit outside of what we would refer to as the “health sector”. For example, when one reaches their teen years, one’s health history lies with the birthing team, pediatrician, general practitioner, dentist, optometrist, and more. And as life progresses, so too does the number of providers, and thus the need for greater data sharing across these provider silos.  

And that’s just the individual patient data. Sharing provider data with other providers is another challenge. Imagine the healthcare and cost savings improvements that might come from cross-provider analyses of provided services, their effectiveness, and their delivery efficiency. 

Government agencies also struggle with the data silo challenge, as each seeks the data they need to accomplish their legislative and regulatory mandates. Secure and controlled health data sharing would let them analyze progress toward their missions and identify problem areas that require additional resources.

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Challenges when connecting healthcare data silos

Health data sharing is a proven path to better healthcare outcomes.  For example, to respond more effectively to COVID-19 in March 2020, the New Zealand Ministry of Health used secure data sharing through Eightwire to capture timely information about intensive care unit (ICU) bed availability. Using hourly ICU bed data from nine district health boards covering over half the country, the Ministry could allocate patients to beds better and optimize constrained resources such as ventilators.

• First, there are privacy and security requirements, which increase in complexity each year.
• Second, while integrating disparate data systems is already tricky, integrating such systems across organizational boundaries is even more challenging.
• Third, while emerging healthcare data-sharing standards promise easier data sharing, adopting them is a yet-to-be-accomplished first step for many.

Unfortunately, sharing healthcare data has proven difficult as the barriers are many.

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Medicly overcomes the medical data sharing challenges  

Medicly is a comprehensive solution that overcomes these critical medical data-sharing challenges. Medicly 

• Meets security and privacy requirements out of the box, saving development and compliance time and effort.
• Integrates systems without needing APIs, manual extracts, or complex technologies, speeding up initial time-to-solution while reducing long-term support costs.
• Applies specific data standards such as SNOWMED or FHIR to ensure the interoperability required to share data effectively across complex healthcare networks.

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Now is the time to act

The formula is simple. Secure healthcare data sharing leads to more significant analytic insights that improve health outcomes.

The only questions are how and how soon.  

Medicly provides the how and can deliver better outcomes within weeks.

If you wish to discuss how Medicly can help you fast-track better health outcomes, click here.