Realising the value of health care data: a framework for the future
August 31, 2021
Medicine is no longer a clinical science just supported by data, it’s moving to a field defined as clinical science in collaboration with data science. Patient data is one of the most important drivers of this change. Unlocking the insights contained in patient genomic and phenotypic data is of high value to all the key stakeholders in the health care ecosystem: patients, providers, payers and the life sciences sector. In this paper, we show the methodological tools that can be used to estimate the value of patient data, specifically the data held by the UK’s NHS. We show how realising the value of this data can help the UK Government achieve its health priorities, and place the UK at the forefront of global health care innovation.
Unlocking the power of health care data to fuel innovation in medical research and improve patient care is at the heart of today’s health care revolution. It is made possible by advances in health care technologies and data digitalisation, and achieved through the analysis of real-world evidence contained within a given patient’s medical records. When curated or consolidated into a single longitudinal data set, these patient-level records will trace a complete story of a patient’s health, wellness, diagnosis, treatments, medical procedures and outcomes. Unlocking insights from such medical records would be of high value and benefit to all key stakeholders in the health care ecosystem — patients, health care providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. Consider a few examples:
• Deeper disease understanding
• Treatment effectiveness and safety or pharmacovigilance
• Increased in the quality of care, such as faster and early diagnosis
• Observation of real-world patient outcomes and clinical pathway efficiency
• Improved patient access to therapies
• Evidence of cost-effectiveness and outcomes to inform value-based payments
• Efficient target identification for new treatments and medicines
• Clinical trial design for target populations and reduced time to market for new therapies
• Operational and cost-effectiveness of health care delivery, and workforce planning
• Enablement of personalised medicine — right treatments for the right patients
• Socioeconomic impacts of health, wellness and health care
