Accenture releases practical guides on using patient-generated healthcare data

Accenture is helping clinics with data analytics and machine learning tools along with PGHD. The company has come up with their white papers and practical guides to help healthcare professionals.

Patient-generated health data (PGHD) are health-related data collected through mobile apps, sensors, and consumer wearables. The PGHD addresses the health of patient effectively. Healthcare professionals and doctors firmly believe that the recorded data could vastly improve the eHealth system while considering its ballooning and care delivery costs. Technology key player-Accenture is helping hospitals in managing their patient-generated health data effectively.

The company recently completed its two-year contract with ONC-Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT where they have created a white paper. This initiative would help the clinics in understanding and implementing patient-generated health data.

Hospitals could use this data in analyzing the patient behaviour with the help of data analytics and machine learning tools.

In an interview with MobiHealthNews Emily Mitchell, a senior manager with the Accenture Federal Services Health and Public Service practice, said, “The white paper, at its most basic, was intended to inform ONC of what are the challenges, what are the best practices, what’s actually going on in the real world as they think about long-term policy considerations.”

He further mentioned that it was meant to inform the government, help them understand what the current state is and what’s achievable in the future, but also what are the roadblocks that need to be overcome in the meantime.

Accenture successfully executed their two pilot projects, first being Tap cloud and Amita, whereas the second one was Validic and Sutter Health. In these pilot projects, the company gained valuable insights that helped in deploying patient-generated health data projects smoothly across other clinics.

The 67-page white paper would be available in three page practical guide so that the healthcare professional can effectively make use of all the techniques in managing their clinic’s data.

Accenture’s support team would help these clinics in implementing the solutions listed in the white paper. Healthcare professionals would have more time for face to face conversation with the implementation of machine learning and data analytics tools.

Mitchell said, “Everyone was concerned that it was going to be a data overload, and increase the clinician burden,” He continued saying, “I think in the pilots they demonstrated that it can work for the clinicians. In both cases, we had really good feedback both from the patients and also from the care teams, that it can work as long as you’re thoughtful about how you’re implementing PGHD.

You can’t just all of a sudden start accepting data, but you need to be thoughtful about what are the workflows, how are you going to implement it, who’s going to review the data and set expectations with the patients about the frequency.”

Patient-generated health data is huge and the practical guide is shorter. Mitchel suggested that the healthcare professionals should be curious enough to ask more questions in terms of strategizing their clinic’s data internally. This would help them in getting started with such huge data.