Despite the great work of healthcare staff and promising moves from government, Australia’s healthcare system still suffers from information silos because of the lack of granularity of our medical data.

A patient might see hospitals, specialists, pharmacists, GPs or allied health professionals along their healthcare journey–none of which will be in direct contact with each other, and all of which will probably be using different systems to record and store patient information.

When a patient presents at a specialist with a referral from a GP, for example, the specialist will get the brief overview of their condition via the referral letter but won’t know the full extent of their file with the GP. Nor will the GP know the full extent of the care the specialist provides the patient they referred (unless they come back for another consultation).

Any health tech devices the patient is wearing (for example a smartwatch with heart monitor) likely won’t communicate with existing medical data, meaning any warning signs may be missed.

What can we do better?

The gold standard

A new data standard has recently been introduced by the Health Level Seven International (HL7) standards organisation. Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) aims to enhance and standardise patient data, allowing it to move seamlessly through the healthcare ecosystem. It’s been adopted by a few big players in the US, and we’re starting to see some uptake here in Australia too.

Dr Russell Leftwich, senior clinical advisor of interoperability for InterSystems, summed it up well in this opinion piece:

“...Data is no longer in a hospital system alone. It’s in many different systems: it’s in clinics and pharmacies, it’s in devices that people have at home and in wearables, it’s in mobile devices, it’s in government agencies, it’s in genomic sequencing labs, it’s in literally hundreds of other databases. And, we are learning, even data that isn’t what we previously considered healthcare data is also important to an individual’s health.”

How can we gravitate towards a more FHIR-friendly data framework?

We all need richer data

A lot of medical data in Australia is set up with a ‘flat’ structure - for example, one text box to input notes. This makes it a lot harder to use. From a healthcare provider’s perspective, it’s akin to looking at a PDF text document with no way to quickly isolate or sort by different types of information.

The nature of healthcare is that it’s very segmented and each provider needs to be able to access granular information. Much of Australia’s healthcare information can’t be sliced up to make it easier to deliver real-time insights.

CareMonitor gives each healthcare provider rich, granular data from a number of different sources, all separated for easy reading.

Data needs to flow freely between providers

FHIR encourages healthcare providers to standardise information in such a way that all patient data is available at every touchpoint.

Pharmacists, for example, would benefit from knowing more about a patient’s condition and the full suite of medications they’re taking, rather than just the one that’s just been prescribed, so they can give better care or advice at the point of purchasing the medication.

There is some good work being done by linking up pharmacies and helping analyse drug interactions, but it still doesn’t give each healthcare provider the full spectrum of information they need to give better care.

Data needs to be recorded automatically

Relying on providers to input information manually leads to varying data quality. Some doctors may think to enter each reading, diagnosis or piece of information - another may not see it as useful information or forget in the context of a busy, stressful day.

CareMonitor tries to take as much manual work away from healthcare professionals as we can by creating one central profile that builds over time. We’re painting a more vivid picture of a patient’s condition by automatically pulling in data from across the full care journey (including connected devices).

Our vision for medical data in Australia

We think the future of healthcare is open information sharing and collaboration, exposing patients to the expertise of Australia’s best healthcare startups.

Our vision is a seamless flow of information between healthcare providers at each step of the process–from initial consultation, to diagnosis and medication, and assisting with ongoing care like diabetes treatment or a dietician.

Not only is the information shared more effectively, leading to better care, it also speeds up each interaction as you’re not asking the patient to repeat the same information to each new provider. You may even be able to shorten your standard consultation time or fit more patients in each day.

CareMonitor is building a fully integrated healthcare platform. We’re allowing healthcare professionals to actively collaborate to provide better care to their patients, with clever touches throughout to make data input as accurate and easy as possible. To find out more, please get in touch.