PUBLICATION EXCLUSIVE: Big data analysis can benefit ophthalmic practice and bump up the bottom line

The evaluation and analysis of large sets of data from registries, health care companies and government can improve patient treatments and cut down costs for ophthalmology practices.

Ophthalmology is “one of the most data intensive” communities in the health care industry, but the analysis of big data has not yet taken a step past a “cursory look” of how a patient is doing at follow-up, OSN Cataract Surgery Section Editor John A. Hovanesian, MD, FACS, said.

“We are constantly measuring the eye, whether it’s an OCT, corneal topography or biometry. We collect data all the time, but we don’t use it beyond a very cursory look at how the patient is doing,” Hovanesian said. “In fact, the HIPAA laws make it difficult to share data because you have to deidentify data in order to do research on it and share it outside the covered entity that is taking care of the patient.”

Electronic health records should make the analysis and accessibility of big data easy for physicians, but many of the systems are too cumbersome and store data in ways that are not compatible from one system to the next. The systems do not “talk” or interact with each other, and there is no incentive for doctors to share their data with colleagues, Hovanesian said.

Getting feedback from patients is critically important, but having the means to categorize, delegate and follow up is even more important, else the data become lost information, according to Cynthia A. Matossian, MD, FACS.

Tremendous potential

There is tremendous potential for big data to transform aspects of health care and medicine, but many fields are still trying to figure out how to use the information to improve patient care and change practices, Harry Glorikian, author of MoneyBall Medicine, said.

Big data in medical fields and health care describe “large data sets — instead of megabytes, think terabytes, petabytes, etc,” Glorikian said.

“I think the term also encompasses the data analytics behind the data itself since having the data isn’t very helpful unless you’re going to organize it, analyze it and hope to glean some insights from it,” he said.

Oncology, as a collective field of medicine, has utilized the analysis of big data most effectively to improve patient treatments. By using the large amounts of data generated from clinical trials and genomics, patient care has improved extraordinarily over the past two to three decades, Glorikian said.

Click here to read the full publication exclusive, Cover Story, published in Ocular Surgery News U.S. Edition, September 10, 2017.