The following is a guest article by Chris Anello, Director of Digital Platforms at iTech AG
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed healthcare organizations to the edge and exposed both challenges and opportunities related to public health data. Some of these opportunities come down to basics of data interoperability and data sharing—challenges highlighted in a GAO report published last fall. But when it comes to putting the data in front of citizens, healthcare decision makers, government employees, and other key stakeholders, customer experience becomes a major part of the equation.
The appetite for data around COVID-19 cases, hospital availability, vaccines and more, coupled with more frequent virtual consumer experiences, sparked efforts to rethink how we access health data. These range from the CDC Foundation’s newly announced modernization initiative to enhance healthcare data accessibility to the CDC Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology efforts to define a roadmap for health equity.
Bringing together all touchpoints within the healthcare ecosystem makes sense, but this can include data sets and systems from a broad group of organizations across the public and private sector, in healthcare, academia, and more. It can mean large quantities of data for users to wade through and interpret while bringing together potentially conflicting systems, software, tools, and priorities.
To maximize the value of healthcare data and ensure its accessibility, an approach that starts with citizen and user needs is required. This means beginning with an assessment based on a human-centric user journey and putting in place platform governance to navigate competing priorities throughout the process.
Data has the power to inform important decisions or tell memorable stories, but it can also be confusing and overwhelming depending on how it’s presented. This is one area where CX can come in.
By starting the development of a new platform with the human journey in mind, developers can identify service delivery gaps and ensure a smooth experience for the user. Understanding how users are likely to interface with an application or data set can define decisions that will ultimately lead to a user-friendly system, rather than one that’s overly complex.
When it comes to CX, there are numerous entities involved, all of which may have different priorities, even with the end user’s best interest in mind. These competing interests can result in major roadblocks without a plan in place for navigating these differences.
Platform governance—an approach that establishes rules, practices, and standards—can create a hierarchy to manage cross organizational demands. If there are two conflicting priorities, platform governance is the roadmap that ensures the resolution is clearly defined. This not only streamlines decision making, but it avoids cybersecurity concerns and ensures sensitive data and personal information is protected.
To ensure a consistent, fair approach to these decisions, organizations can utilize a demand board to establish which needs are business critical, determine how technologies are deployed, and assess the use of proper processes and procedures. Clear policies and consistent enforcement allow organizations to deploy technology with confidence, ultimately improving CX and increasing accessibility of healthcare data.
In addition, when dealing with many diverse systems and data sets, strategic portfolio management, which creates an organizational process of agencies’ resources, can help ensure that decision-making aligns with business strategies. Complete transparency into processes simplifies managing demands as a clear overview helps organizations better identify gaps and prioritize investments consistent with CX goals.
For healthcare modernization initiatives to succeed, CX must remain top of mind. With a clear strategy starting with a human-centric mentality, defined platform governance, and a strategic portfolio management approach, healthcare organizations will be positioned to deliver healthcare data efficiently and effectively to citizens, healthcare workers, and others who can use the data to create a healthier future.
Author Chris Anello
Chris Anello is the current director of digital platforms at iTech AG, leading digital acceleration projects to support customers’ mission-critical operations. He is an enterprise SaaS executive with more than 15 years in the IT industry and recognized as a creative problem solver who leads strategic initiatives with an entrepreneurial mindset. Over the past seven years Chris helped drive workflow automation initiatives across multiple federal healthcare agencies, including HHS, CDC, FDA, CMS, VA, and DHA.
Chris’ successful career as a services executive in regulated markets combined with his enterprise solution selling expertise is helping drive the next phase of growth at iTech AG. Chris is passionate about modernizing healthcare technology, team building, leadership, and taking on new challenges aimed at delivering innovation and excellence within his team and customers.
