Last month, Avalere Health LLC joined Health Data Consortium as one of our newest members. Avalere is a strategic advisory company whose core purpose is to create innovative solutions to complex healthcare problems. They deliver actionable insights, business intelligence tools and custom analytics for leaders in healthcare business and policy.
To introduce them to our community, we asked Avalere a few questions about why they joined HDC and what initiatives they are currently working on to advance the health data movement:
Why is it a priority for your organization to be a member of the HDC?
Avalere’s vision is to be the essential voice in healthcare. We believe that our customers must understand the role that data has in supporting patient care and in transforming their core business models.
What initiatives / programs at your organization related to health data may be interesting to other members of the Consortium?
Avalere is deeply focused in conducting research and helping our customers understand what data needs to be created and the type of evidence that is needed to improve patient care. We also are engaged in the role that data has in transforming how healthcare is delivered and paid for in the U.S. Avalere has a unique set of experts devoted to developing clinical data architecture, analyzing data and creating research and analytic tools to meet the needs of patients, payers and clinicians.
What are your organization’s short-term (e.g. 6 months – 1 year) and long-term (e.g. 5 years) goals for health data?
Two words that we repeatedly hear in today’s healthcare world are “innovation” and “value.” Due to the digitization of clinical and research data, there is a rapid expansion of large and diverse data sets, or what is more commonly referred to as Big Data. The promise of Big Data is to better collect, aggregate and analyze data that directly contributes to the quality and efficiency of care. In practical terms, Big Data has allowed providers to isolate common causes of readmissions, payers to analyze inefficiencies in care delivery that increase costs, and consumers to understand the ramifications of not taking their medications.
What do you view as the biggest opportunity in health data?
Simply put, the biggest opportunity in health data is the moral obligation we all share — to provide the best patient care possible. The ideal state is to develop a robust infrastructure that aggregates and analyzes health data to inform clinical, coverage and regulatory decision-making. This information is key to improving healthcare quality and supporting the establishment of a learning health system.
What are the biggest challenges facing the health data movement?
Some of the biggest challenges facing the health data movement are the establishment of sustainable business models that support the availability of data for improvements to health. Moreover, secondary users are continuously faced with other challenges, including data accessibility, data quality and data reuse. These barriers are exasperated by limited access to core data sets in machine-readable formats essential for sufficient research, the inability to effectively and efficiently aggregate and analyze data sets from disparate electronic systems due to the lack of clinical and technical standards, and certain policies and regulations that preclude the reuse of health data for research purposes.
Any upcoming events, programs and / or job opportunities you’d like folks to know about?
Clinical Trial Data Transparency: Explaining Governance Considerations for Public Data Sharing
Presented by Health Data Consortium
Date/Time: April 8, 2014 1:00-2:00 EST
Avalere Expert: Dr. Chris Boone
Description: Avalere recognizes the current landscape and the drive of data transparency. This session provides an overview of the clinical trial data transparency discussion in the EU and discusses some of the key barriers to effectively governing the process for collecting, storing, securing, authorizing access, and auditing the data from a regulatory perspective.
Register: here
ACO Webinar Series Part 3: Roadmap for Success—Integrating Specialty Pharmacy into the ACO Model
Co-sponsored by Avalere, Armada Health Care, & Specialty Pharmacy Association of America (SPAARx)
Date/Time: March 19, 2014 1:00-2:00 EST
Avalere Expert: Leigh Ann Bruhn
Description: Join us for the third webinar in the ACO Educational Series as we discuss the strategic and contractual considerations around integrating specialty pharmacies into ACO models.
Register: here
Additionally, Avalere hosts many webinars which you may check out here. You can also follow us on Twitter to stay connected.
If you too are interested in finding out more about becoming an HDC member and the benefits to you as an organization or individual, please visit our Membership page for more details.