2019 Prediction

As 2018 comes to a close, predictive analytics and big data will continue to be the name of the game in 2019.

The ability for data to improve performance, empower informed decision-making, drive revenue gains, and foster competitive advantages in business has been well documented. Harnessing the power of both real-time feedback and accurate prediction is the reason why billions of dollars are being investing into big data initiatives.

We’ve Got Data

Health Action Council has treasure troves of data and we’re right now looking for the smartest ways to use it to your benefit.

According to our 2018 Member Pulse Survey, here are the top five educational priorities next year:

• Artificial intelligence

• Data/predictive analytics

• Innovation

• Technology

• Evolution of corporate benefits role

And for good reason. To improve the health and wellbeing of employee populations, we essentially need four pieces of data:

• Current health

• Risk factors

• Patterns of care

• impact of the social determinants of health

Regarding the social determinants, it’s so important to remember that where our employees live (the level of spending in that community and overall community health outcomes) has a dramatic impact on their health.  

When we look at claims data, we can learn a lot about the cost and utilization of healthcare services, as well as the types of diagnoses and procedures performed by providers.

However, everything that we’re looking at is done in retrospect, and we don’t really get a sense of what the actual process or expense of care is. Therefore, we can’t really do anything with this information but react to it. And we can’t even react to it all that well since we don’t have a clear picture of what was happening or could be done differently.

But what if we weren’t?

Imagine that we had access to clinical data for our employee population in tandem with claims data.

Now imagine that data being combined with patient satisfaction and social determinate data to create a more comprehensive view of the patient care experience, the quality of the experience, the costs associated with care, medical history for our population, and demographic information.

Then we would have an excellent picture of what our employee population’s current health is and what risk factors are plaguing our workforce.     

How to we get there?

All of this is accomplished with data integration. This data can also be combined with other types, such as consumer data. By identifying correlations between consumer data and health outcomes for example, specific data elements can be used in predictive modeling to identify individuals with high risk behaviors or those that are at risk for certain diseases.       

The latest technology is capable of doing much of this and more. It allows for a better understanding of employee populations and a better sense of what they need to be their best.

I predict that 2019 will be our best year yet and I look forward to all the opportunities that await us in the New Year.

Get more insight on future trends during our 2019 IN-VALUE-ABLE Conference Series starting with our Annual Symposium January 24 in Columbus and National Conference & Expo February 12-13 in Cleveland.