The Promise of Data and New Connections

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Jul 05, 2016
by Patrick Wilson
The Promise of Data and New Connections

Fellows of the Health and Health Care Innovation series have been using data and new networks to advance their work

YAEL HARRIS demonstrates a mobile health data app to LUCY SAVITZ, REBECCA EMENY, and session chair VERONIQUE ROGER. Every Salzburg Global Seminar session brings together a curated group of Fellows in the hope of forming new connections, sparking new ideas, and strengthening existing networks. The session The Promise of Data: Will this Bring a Revolution in Health Care? certainly fulfilled this programmatic promise, with collaborations forged in Salzburg demonstrating the program’s impact far beyond the Schloss gates.Data Models for Health Knowledge-SharingSince attending the session in Salzburg, US-based Fellows Yael Harris, senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, and Lucy Savitz, senior scientist at the Institute for Health Care Delivery Research at Intermountain Healthcare, have been promoting a new data model they developed at the session. The model focuses on moving data from analytics to knowledge, sharing learning and innovations across nations and health systems (including patient-driven knowledge) to expedite the transformation of health.Savitz and Harris have also submitted a conference abstract, with Savitz presenting the model at the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Gothenburg, Sweden, in April 2016. Harris is planning another presentation on the model to the Health Information Systems Society (HIMSS), an international organization focused on using health information technology to promote health care improvement.Harris and Savitz were also invited, alongside session co-chair Keith Lindor, to speak via Skype at the 2016 Salzburg Global program Hooked on Health Care: Designing Strategies for Better Health.Together with Fellows Kristen Anton and Rebecca Emeny from Dartmouth College (a partner of the session), Harris and Savitz are working to develop a call to action to further promote the knowledge-sharing collaborative.Harris has collaborated with two-time Fellow Amel Farrag Hammad from Egypt, co-authoring an academic paper that compares their respective countries’ governments’ approaches to quality improvement. They hope to see the paper published by the Journal of Quality Management in Healthcare. 

Icelandic Digital Health Initiative

Surgeon General of Iceland Birgir Jakobsson has been making use of his newly enlarged network of contacts fostered during the session to move forward with an “Icelandic Digital Health Initiative,” which was designed by the participants of his working group when in Salzburg.

“It is an initiative to use the available data in the interests of public health in Iceland,” he told Salzburg Global. “The databases there have been used a lot for research, but as I see it, they are not giving back what the Icelandic population should have out of it. That has been my concern now since I entered office: how can I do that in the interest of public health?”The initiative calls for a personalized medicine approach, beginning with the selection of patient needs, and aims for the highest possible intervention impact by health providers. With a wealth of data already available through Iceland’s thorough, centuries-old record keeping, it should be relatively easy to identify a list of patients and diseases that deserve priority attention. Public engagement is key, with the public continually informed of progress and able to give feedback to the steering committees overseeing data use in Iceland. READ MORE ONLINE: www.SalzburgGlobal.org/go/fellows/birgir-jakobsson
FIND OUT MOREThe report from the session The Promise of Data: Will this Bring a Revolution in Health Care? is available online to read, download, and share.SEE ONLINE: www.SalzburgGlobal.org/go/548 health.SalzburgGlobal.org