The Big Data Transformation of Population & Community Health

Big data, analytics, and predictive modeling have rapidly become a foundational proficiency for healthcare organizations seeking to deliver value-based care. The applications include: reducing costs, enhancing quality and efficiency of care delivery, managing population health, and improving each patient’s health outcomes and experience. Recent advances in technology have allowed health systems to overcome what appeared to be insurmountable challenges in the past such as data integration, large scale data warehousing, and predictive modeling using novel tools such as machine learning. New challenges are now emerging including data governance and security. For this talk, we will provide an overview of the work of Carolinas HealthCare System’s advanced analytics group (Dickson Advanced Analytics Group, DA²) in creation of the data and analytics infrastructure needed to support population health, examples of two key initiatives using predictive modeling to advance community health and prevent hospital readmissions, and future challenges the organization is working to overcome.