Category Archives: Uncategorized
An EMR isn’t enough, Part I
EMR vendors have long encouraged that their EMR and business intelligence capabilities negate the need to have a plan to integrate data or implement a separate data warehousing and business intelligence. This philosophy begs the question – how can one transactional clinical application support the intelligence needs of an enterprise? Consider customer relationship management data for feeding customer driven marketing initiatives, time tracking data full of valuable employee utilization stats, payer claims data and newly acquired practices running an EMR independent of Epic… just to name a few.
With the recognition that an EMR accounts for only a fraction of the data needed for reliable and comprehensive business intelligence comes requirements to reconcile terminology and data quality standards across an increasingly large set of trading partners and stakeholders, to access data from other sources (like payroll, CRM and claims) and to migrate clinical data from legacy applications.
In fact, business intelligence and analytics are dependent on data from across the enterprise. Most clinical and financial decisions are dependent on data; great potential lies within data – making it a valuable asset. This is not a new idea. What is a newer concept is what it means to really elevate data to the status of an asset. Unlocking the potential of data as an asset requires that healthcare organizations begin to think about and invest in data in new ways; making investments beyond traditional infrastructure like databases and data storage. Healthcare organizations must make investments in the ongoing management and improvement of the data itself as they do with any other asset, like talent, buildings or their EMR – for example understanding its quality and allocating people and systems to managing it. Moving faster in this competitive climate and delivering differentiated results requires it.
Check back next week for Part II which explores treating data as an asset further.
Informatica World Healthcare Path
Join us this year at Informatica World!
We have a great line up of speakers and events to help you become a data driven healthcare organization… I’ve provided a few highlights below:
Participate in the Informatica World Keynote sessions with Sohaib Abbasi and Rick Smolan who wrote “The Human Face of Big Data” — learn more via this quick YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5d9ArRLJE&feature=player_embedded
With more than 100 interactive and in-depth breakout sessions, spanning 6 different tracks, (Platform & Products, Architecture, Best Practices, Big Data, Hybrid IT and Tech Talk), Informatica World is an excellent way to ensure you are getting the most from your Informatica investment. Learn best practices from organizations who are realizing the potential of their data like: Ochsner Health, Sutter Health, UMass Memorial, Qualcomm and Paypal.
Finally, we want you to balance work with a little play… we invite you to network with industry peers at our Healthcare Cocktail Reception on the evening of Wednesday, June 5th and again during our Data Driven Healthcare Breakfast Roundtable on Thursday, June 6th.
See you there!
Ready for Your Data Security Audit?
In a recent survey of Informatica customers,
• Over 60% of companies had a security audit in the last year
• 35% of the companies had an internal security audit
• 16% of the companies had both an internal security audit and one performed by an external auditor
• In addition, many of these organizations saw that another company in their same industry suffered a data breach.
These results are reinforced by the discussions I had with Audit and Compliance IT owners from various industries. Audits are on the rise as more customers require these audits before purchase. Compliance IT requires reports at a database or system level showing that the data has been protected. And they want to see these reports on a regular basis as data, including test data pulled from production environments, changes frequently.
Driving these audits and Informatica projects to protect data were the following top regulatory drivers (as reported by customers):
• SOX
• PCI
• PII
• PHI
These results are reinforced by the increasing use of Informatica’s regulatory and industry packs (containing pre-built rules and metadata), including PCI, PHI and PII. In addition to these areas, organizations I’ve spoken to are implementing projects to also protect non-public information, or confidential company information. For example, last week I spoke to a company about how they share detailed financial information about their company as part of the data they said to an outsourced partner. This financial information could be easily used to estimate company’s revenues and profits for any given quarter—before that information is released to the street, if at all.
In this same survey, the top benefits customers said that Informatica’s solution addressed included:
• Increasing productivity by leveraging pre-built masking techniques, accelerators and purpose-built tools
• Reducing the time it took to identify and capture optimal test cases, therefore reducing overall testing time
• Reducing the risk of data breach
Are you ready for your data security audit?
For more information on Informatica’s data security solutions for non-production environments, please join us for an upcoming webinar:
For more information on Informatica’s data security solutions in general, please see:
Informatica Recognized By Gartner as a Leader in Data Masking and by Infosecurity for Best Security Software
Informatica was named as a leader in the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Masking. A couple of weeks ago, Infosecurity named Informatica as a finalist for Best Security Software for 2013.
Both the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Masking and Infosecurity Products Guide recognized Informatica for continued innovation:
- Gartner states, “The data masking portfolio has been broadening. In addition to SDM technology… the market is beginning to offer dynamic data masking (DDM)… ” (more…)
‘Cute Little Apps’ are Starting to Open Up Analytics
From the “it’s-About-Time” Department: More enterprises are embracing – or will soon be embracing – access to data analytics via mobile apps.
Having analytics available in a simple app fashion could be a major boost for efforts to “democratize” analytics in organizations. I once heard Competing on Analytics guru and best-selling author Tom Davenport wonder out loud at a conference why there weren’t more analytics being made available as a “cute little app.” By offering analytics through simple, single-purpose mobile apps, decision-making can be brought into a whole new realm. “I’ve heard of 50 analytical apps for the iPhone so far,” he points out. Examples include a nursing-productivity app, a truck-loading analysis app, and a social sentiment analysis app. (more…)
2013 Predictions from the World of Data
Let me open by stating what I’m not: I’m not one of those psychic data scientists who can predict the future – although sometimes I wish I had gone to the same school that Nate Silver did! However, my hindsight has always been phenomenal! It’s been a year of immense change and one thing I can predict with 100% certainty for 2013 – more change!
It’s become an annual tradition at this time of year to share technology predictions and trends that we should pay attention to in the coming year. They have already started coming through thick and fast – see here for predictions relating to B2B Marketing, Social Media, IDC, Gartner, Tech and even Jim Cramer! I’ve been thinking about this lately and I want to share my top predictions. Read on and tell me what you think. I’d love to hear what your predictions are for 2013 too. Let’s see how close we are on what’s to come. (more…)
Data Governance Measure & Monitor Processes Open a Window to Data and its Value
As mentioned in my post describing the major business processes that comprise a data governance function, the Measure and Monitor processes i) capture and measure the effectiveness and value generated from data governance and stewardship efforts, ii) monitors compliance and exceptions to defined policies and rules, and iii) enables transparency and auditability into data assets and their life cycle. (more…)
It’s 2 AM, Do You Know Where Your Data Is?
Does your organization have a structured repository of metadata that can help a data center operator (whether they are on-site or off-shore) quickly troubleshoot a production incident related to a data integration job at 2:00 am in the morning? Or any time of day for that matter? This is just one use of metadata. A new Metadata Management whitepaper has just been published which describes the wide range of metadata types, uses and the business value derived from them. (more…)
Hierarchical Data – More Than Just XML
In a recent Aberdeen Group Analyst Insight paper it was identified that 50% of their survey respondents were currently integrating Hierarchical data sources with 13% planning to implement this capability in the next 12 months. But the changing trend is that of those organisations currently integrating XML data where nearly a third are using or are planning to integrate other Hierarchical sources with the need to integrate JSON coming out in the lead with COBOL records and Google Protocol Buffers close behind. Apache AVRO has not been integrated much currently but shows the biggest growth in planned integration and also number of projects. (more…)
How Was it for You? The Future of the Quality Experience
One major emergence from the Big Data debate especially in the Telco Industry is the sudden elevation of the focus on Customer Experience with QoE or Quality of Experience and CEM or Customer Experience management. With new and emerging technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC), Machine to Machine (M2M) and Mobile Social Media Apps hitting the news every day like a Reality ‘Stars’ socializing antics; we are all fascinated by how much organisations either know, can find out or deduce about our lives: what we like / dislike, how much we may be worth to those organisations, what we already own and even where we physically are or will be in the next few minutes. All the minutiae of our lives and personalities laid bare to be pawed over, analysed and used to control us and eventually sell us yet more ‘stuff’. (more…)
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