The Differences Between Digital Health Data and Electronic Health Records
Electronic health records and digital health data.
Sounds like the same thing, right? To those unfamiliar with electronic medical information and its uses, the two may sound interchangeable. But to those with hands-on experience with EHRs, the differences and benefits of digital health data are clear. In this blog we will dive deep and explore the limitations of electronic health records for underwriting and the qualities of digital health data that are transformational for life insurance.
Electronic Health Records
Over the past few years, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have been a huge topic of conversation as they have become more and more widely adopted. According to The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, by 2019, 96% of hospitals adopted an electronic health record system. Since patients’ health data is already largely in EHRs, the logical and inevitable future is getting health information from EHRs.
EHRs have been touted as the solution to bring medical evidence into the digital era. However, as more firms experiment with EHRs they come face-to-face with the challenges of using them and realize the limitations when using EHRs for digital processes. Organizations are coming to the conclusion that additional solutions are necessary to be able to make EHRs truly valuable.
The challenges of using EHRs in the underwriting process fall into three main categories:
Inconsistent data format
Data is most transformational when it is structured.
There are a host of charting systems which leads to a lack of consistent formatting across the board. Not to mention, different providers have different styles and methods of recording medical information which adds to the difficulty of normalizing the information in EHRs into a single, consistent schema.
Without consistent formatting, no level of automation, structured reporting, or analysis can be done using EHR data. This means that without being run through a data normalizer and turned into digital health data, the only real benefit EHRs bring is that they are faster to retrieve than a traditional APS.
Long, confusing and full of duplication
Underwriters have seen EHRs with thousands of pages. The length of a record that size requires a lengthy manual review. Much of the data is likely the same, the dates aren’t in chronological order and a lot of the information is in medical codes, making it a tedious, complicated, and confusing ordeal for the manual reviewer.
Incomplete records from many sources
Underwriters order medical evidence on applicants to gain a thorough understanding of their health history and current health profile. Occasionally, providers only have a few data points on the applicant, such as a single COVID vaccine record or demographic information which isn’t exactly helpful for creating a comprehensive health history of someone. In these instances EHRs need to be retrieved from multiple sources and combined.
In the United States, healthcare is extremely fragmented. This means that patient records also reside in numerous data sources and in numerous data formats. This fragmentation makes it difficult to retrieve EHRs on all of your users, as well as combine the applicant’s medical data from numerous sources into a consistent schema for a comprehensive health history.
So what makes Digital Health Data different?
ASo are EHRs destined to be a complicated and impractical solution? Absolutely not!
On their own, EHRs don’t meet the needs of underwriters. This is where digital health data comes in. To make EHRs a viable solution, the medical information within them needs to be turned into digital health data.
Digital health data takes the concerns and limitations of EHRs into account and turns the records into data designed to power modern, digital processes.
Data normalization
For EHR data to be truly powerful, especially in automated and other digital applications, the clinical data needs to be de-duplicated, cleaned, and normalized into a structure that is the same, no matter the source of the EHR. Once this is accomplished, the digital health data found in EHRs can truly become a force to be reckoned with.
Once an EHR is normalized, the digital health data can be used for:
Automated decisioning
Consistent, easy-to-read reports
Meaningful analysis of health data
EHRs are not useful for any of the above without first being turned into digital health data.
Customizable reports
A properly structured report is often the difference between data from an EHR being helpful or not. Long, duplicative, confusing EHRs detract from efficiency - but a short report that pulls out key information to answer your exact questions maximizes efficiency.
Digital health data allows the medical information from an EHR to be identified and structured into a report that categorizes and puts the data into chronological order for easy reference and better understanding of the applicant’s medical history. With health data in an easy-to-read format (for manual and auto-review), the data in EHRs is not only manageable but transformational.
Once patient records are in the form of digital health data, the possibilities for innovation are endless (for an in-depth look at how health data will impact life insurance, check out our How Digital Health Data is Changing Life Insurance blog). At Human API we believe that the future of insurance underwriting lies with digital health data. We have invested in making digital health data attainable, usable and functional for life insurance companies.
For more information on how digital health data can change your business reach out to us here.
