5 Ways Master Data Management Improves the Patient Experience

Improving patient experience requires taking a holistic approach to providing patient care. That requires a knowledge of every facet of care patients need, including solving issues associated with the social determinants of health (SDoH).

SDoH has been a major headache for hospital systems and state government organizations for a long time. To solve these issues, a complete accounting of patient data is necessary.

Data quality in healthcare and life sciences creates unique challenges requiring specialized solutions. These industries need highly scalable, ecosystem-wide master data management solutions that form a single source of reliable information. 

To understand how vital these systems are to patient care, let’s first look at what master data management is and how you can utilize these systems to improve patients’ experiences.

Key Takeaways:

• Master data management in healthcare is a process that creates uniform data sets on patients, healthcare suppliers, and medical supplies from various IT systems. It improves data quality in healthcare, streamlines data sharing, and facilitates data transactions.
• Methods to improve patient experience include providing the best possible care by having a complete patient record, a seamless patient handoff between departments, and a consistent treatment record.
• Aftercare and follow-up are more efficient with proper healthcare data management. Health data exchange also ensures better care and treatment in the future.

What is Master Data Management?

Master data management is a process that creates uniform data sets on customers (or patients), products, suppliers, and other entities from various IT systems. It does the following:

• Improves data quality
• Streamlines data sharing
• Facilitates data transactions

Master data management programs deliver a singular view by merging data from various sources into a basic format. That standard format is known as the Golden Record.

Master data is a compilation of each data domain in an organization. Domains are the categories within a business (or healthcare facility) such as customers (patients), products, suppliers, and materials (i.e., medical supplies).

Uniform data helps by reducing errors and optimizing industry processes, policies, and procedures. It also boosts the accuracy of business information (BI) and analytics applications for better strategic planning and decision making.

Video: What is Master Data Management (MDM)?

Healthcare master data management refers to patient information and factors associated with their care. That includes provider data management, diagnosis, procedures, medical history, and medications.

Biotech and life sciences organizations are preparing for a culture shift in drug marketing. Improving the patient experience means shifting the marketing focus from providers to patients.

This patient journey consists of education, marketing, and onboarding to engage with the patient. It also includes:

• Insurance coverage navigation
• Patient services
• Retention efforts
• Digital therapeutics
• Patient portal applications

5 Ways Master Data Management Improves Patient Experience

As patient experience is becoming more digitized, there is an over-abundance of data in the healthcare setting. Without a unified system, vital information may not be available.

That can lead to misdiagnosis or over-medication. Worse yet, doctors may perform procedures contraindicated for a patient’s chronic condition.

Furthermore, determining other causations of disease and illness make it difficult for life scientists to develop medications that account for environmental conditions.

In other industries, poor data can lead to profit loss. In medicine, it can be fatal. The four core goals of data quality in healthcare include:

• Accuracy and validity
• Completeness
• Consistency
• Up to date

Image source: https://www.medicoreach.com/impact-of-poor-data-quality-in-healthcare/

Understanding how to process and use this data to improve the patient experience and outcome is key. Below are five ways that data can positively affect your patients’ experience.

1. Complete Treatment Record

When it comes to patient care, every moment is critical. Symptoms can range from mild to life-threatening, and how medical professionals record those conditions influences the accuracy of care.

From an EMS to nurses to the treating physician, each denotes their patient care to create a complete impression record. Moving beyond that, drug manufacturers must have access to all patient information for future medication development, including environmental factors.

2. Seamless Patient Handoff

When a doctor refers a patient to another physician or a specialist, it’s vital not to lose data between systems during the transfer. A unified data system will ensure a seamless patient handoff between other providers, even if they use a different system for record-keeping.

3. Enhanced Out-Of-Network Communications

In the past, doctors would need to call down to the records department to obtain information regarding a patient’s medical records. If the patient had a doctor outside of the treating facility, waiting for this information could take hours (or longer) to receive.

Even after facilities digitized medical records, there still wasn’t a uniform process for recording and accessing these records. The most effective healthcare master data management systems can communicate with other network systems to obtain vital patient records.

It also benefits members of the facility’s billing department and the patient’s insurance provider. Each department has access to data-rich records to ensure accuracy for processing payments.

4. Better Aftercare and Follow-Up

Not all follow-up requires another visit to the doctor’s office. Some aftercare can take place over the phone or with a telehealth visit via Zoom or other teleconferencing software. 

A master data management platform also ensures that whoever provides the aftercare has access to patient records, whether they’re out or in-network. It also gives biotechnicians access to data from the patient without speaking to them directly.

They can review the data collected from these communications to determine whether health-damaging experiences in the patient’s life are impacting their recovery. They can then develop and market medication solutions for these situations.

5. Superior Future Care and Treatment

Image source: https://idskids.com/what-is-patient-experience-and-why-does-it-matter/

Along with the areas listed in the above graph, it’s pivotal to improve processes and procedures. Available and accurate data improves the state of healthcare overall. It enables administrators, directors, and drug developers to review processes to pinpoint areas for improvement.

Master data management software allows hospitals and laboratories to note procedural gaps. It makes it easier to:

• Dissect and aggregate data
• Complete audits
• Meet regional, state, and federal compliances
• Know where additional staff is needed

These data systems ensure that medical professionals have the funding, tools, and support they need to provide the best possible care for current and future patients.

The Role of Data Governance in Healthcare

Data quality and completeness improve the patient experience. At Gaine, we consolidate and maintain an accurate ecosystem for provider data. 

Our Coperor™ platform is a healthcare provider data model that provides usability and reliability to assist your medical facility or laboratory with master data management. It enhances your data enrichment processes.

For more information on our solutions for healthcare data quality, contact us today.