Becker’s Health IT: How California is building the nation’s largest healthcare data exchange
The state of California recently embarked on an ambitious endeavor. Using hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding, the nation's largest state plans to connect its hospitals and healthcare providers through a statewide health information exchange.
On the opportunities to expand equity:
Abner Mason, founder and CEO of patient engagement platform SameSky Health: We should have a healthcare system in this country that works for everyone regardless of what they look like, what they talk like, where they come from, or how much money they make.
It's really important for us to have race, ethnicity and language data. We can then use that data to understand — using breast cancer screening as just one example — what percentage of women in what area of the state are getting breast cancer screenings.
If we have a statewide database, we can then do the analysis and say, "In this part of the state we are really behind, and there are huge disparities." And then we can target programs, we can target resources, we can take steps to reduce those disparities.
“My belief is the key part of creating a more equitable healthcare system in the U.S. is data. We've got to understand where the problems are.”
Read the full article in Becker’s Health IT here.
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