In healthcare, fragmented data remains one of the most significant barriers to meaningful patient engagement and converting patients to care. Health enterprises want a better understanding of patient entry into care scenarios and what drives them to select a health system, which requires drilling down beyond clinical data into what drives engagement. However, turning disparate data into actionable insights that can be personalized to engage patients is no small task. But with a clear strategy and the right data readiness approach, meaningful digital engagement is within reach.
For a deeper dive into this topic, Redpoint Global’s Product Marketing Principal Steve Zisk, Houston Methodist’s Director of Digital Marketing Jackie Effenson, and SoftServe’s Healthcare Solutions Leader & HIPAA Security Officer Peter Burns, joined Fierce Healthcare for the Pulse Check webinar,
What is Data Readiness?
The panel examined the current healthcare market and how providers are challenged to retain and attract new patients through ongoing communication while speaking to their personal needs and preferences. Foundational to this endeavor is data readiness— bringing together siloed systems, or point solutions, and their clinical and consumer data to create a unified patient profile that supports patient outreach beyond the EHR.
During the webinar, Effenson set the stage for Houston Methodist’s need to engage patients and prospective patients as a key objective for integrating a data readiness foundation, “We wanted to make sure we provided information that’s relevant when targeting patient populations, and what I like to call ‘pure consumers’ that have entered in their first-party data set and opted in to receive information. So, how do we do that if we don’t know anything about them?”
Houston Methodist does not face this challenge alone. It’s a frequent pain point for health systems to consolidate fragmented operating systems and disparate data to create robust datasets that power omnichannel outreach and motivate patients to pursue their next care encounter. Redpoint’s Zisk expanded on his experience working with system leaders to address that challenge head-on, “In the provider world, their biggest, and common, theme is the isolation of data and different groups in the health organization. It’s hard to gain context by bringing the cross-functional departments and data together, recognizing broader organizational goals.”
Zisk continued, “Tying data back to a use case is the core of what systems are trying to accomplish. The other side is the technology and methodology must tie into a system’s operating workflows, and with the other providers and practices in their network that present along the patient care journey.”
SoftServe’s Burns also elaborated on this pain point, “Engaging with people and understanding them starts with data. In many cases, data from disparate systems that don’t talk with each other, which involves understanding someone not only across the continuum of care but through early stages of engagement, the community and integrating those data sources.”
The goal is for health systems to find the right technology partner to produce data that’s fit for purpose. Data can enable laser-focused targeting and coordinated omnichannel outreach, while improving outcomes and building long-term resilience, paving the way for intelligent automation and artificial intelligence-driven insights.
Establishing a Data Readiness Hub
Houston Methodist focused on using a data readiness hub to drive effective and efficient “enter-the-door conversations” for consumers and current patients so that Houston Methodist remains top of mind as their preferred system of choice. Effenson shared, “Patient interception from different service lines and uncovering a candidate for other services is dependent on what we know about them. By utilizing insightful data sets, we understand how to communicate with these audiences differently, how they behave and interact with us, and present engaging, relevant opportunities. Putting the patient and consumer first by talking about their needs and how to meet them means having the right data and tech stack to do it as opposed to just touting Houston Methodist and its accolades.”
The Houston Methodist team integrated demographic data and digital signals with patient information from Epic to enrich the consumer record and gain a more holistic view of the patient journey. By understanding how patients first engaged with the system, their preferences, other behavioral cues, and when they converted to care, Houston Methodist was better equipped to identify where and how the system could provide the most value.
“A key question to ask when vetting software solutions is if they are a strong and willing integration partner. You need that flexibility, as everyone uses different tools, and you need to make sure everything flows. We wanted Redpoint to be the mothership of all the data—the source of truth. We knew we’d have different data coming from here and there, but where it became synthesized, again from either a segmentation or attribution purpose, should happen all within this one hub.”
Burns expanded, “You find the art in the science. The goal isn’t to centralize the data; it’s to activate it. Understanding the outcomes as you enter the project, activating around outcomes, and interpreting those real-time signals in a way that’s consistent with your workflow. You must engage the people who are involved in the workflow to use the tools appropriately. Data readiness is the most critical to the engagement strategy but the integration into workflow and activation into further of goals fits on top of it all.”
Putting Data to Work for Digital Engagement
Data readiness is able to turn unified data into a solid base for segmentation, personalization, activation, and for future AI deployments. A data readiness hub with built-in tools cleans, deduplicates, resolves identities, and keeps the data accurate. Personalized engagement can be at scale and offer cleaner, more complete patient profiles and more personalized engagement and care.
With the right data foundation in place, Houston Methodist continues to build brand equity, credibility, and trust while emphasizing that it’s about the patient. “We’re able to validate our story in market with data—how is media being effective, how are we driving volume that’s leading to front door encounters and further downstream revenue, and what does all that look like,” noted Effenson.
When you have a good platform or partner, you’ll ease the workload, speed up results, and have secure and compliant data. “Data maturity doesn’t mean data complexity. It means data readiness. Data that’s right and fit for purpose,” shared Zisk.
Interested in learning more? Check out our data readiness resources:
- Infographic: From Data Silos To Actionable Insights
- eBook: Bridge the Data Gap
