In this Q&A, Kevin Dawson, CTIO of LANES, shares his expertise on the transformative role of health information exchange (HIE) in California’s healthcare landscape. From advancing whole-person care to leveraging data visualization and preparing for AI innovations, Kevin discusses how LANES is driving integration and innovation to improve patient outcomes and operational efficiency.
What is one of the most exciting aspects about working on the leading edge of data exchange in California?
We live at an exciting time in healthcare, when health data collected at multiple organizations drives decision making and improves health outcomes, quality of care, and operational efficiencies. LANES is the industry leader in California in developing healthcare data integration solutions that provide a comprehensive view of the patient and eliminate the fragmented view based on episodes of care. LANES built a high-performing, cross-functional team of healthcare and technology experts and implemented a state-of-the-art health information exchange (HIE). LANES architects are recognized for their contributions to the HL-7 and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) healthcare information standards. Moreover, LANES integration engineers develop industry-leading solutions that interface with not only the most common electronic health records systems, but more than 50 different types.
What is the role of data exchange in achieving whole person care?
Clinical decision-making relies on large and complex data sets. By the end of the 20th century, medicine reached the point that navigating hyper-complex clinical information required hyper-specialization in medicine. The risk of hyper-specialization is a narrowly focused view that leads to treating diseases or even symptoms rather than curing the patient. HIEs are well-positioned to integrate data silos and present comprehensive views of a patient. LANES provides a 360-degree view of the patient. Our platform integrates more than 10 million patients’ information from various data sources in a secure way. Our hundreds of participants include healthcare providers, health plans, health systems, post-acute care, home health, telehealth, and behavioral health agencies. LANES provides solutions for various use cases such as transition of care, enhanced care management, and chronic disease surveillance. We also support community-based organizations that address patients’ transportation, food, and housing insecurities.
How will data visualization tools and their evolution change the way data is used by providers and clinicians?
Healthcare is an information-rich industry. However, information is fragmented in multiple information systems at multiple organizations, making it difficult to understand and use. That’s why LANES is committed to integrating available patient information into a single comprehensive view and present it to decision-makers, such as clinicians and healthcare administrators. In clinical care, visualization tools help to interpret data faster, and recognize trends and outliers. In population health management, visualization tools help compare populations of patients and detect changes and their causes.
What are the biggest challenges organizations face when implementing secure and efficient data exchange systems, and how can these challenges be mitigated?
Historically, electronic health records systems were built as billing systems. Clinical functions were added later. Many systems grew into behemoths where one can find some very old technologies in the core after scratching the surface. Most of these systems focus on the episode of care and have limited functionality to support care transitions and to integrate with other types of systems. To break down system-specific data silos, healthcare organizations need to have financial incentives to share data and adopt standard interfaces, such as FHIR.
How are hospitals unique in adopting data exchange systems?
Health information exchanges help hospitals in various ways. Patient information from other healthcare organizations can be presented during emergency department visits, leading to faster and more accurate decision-making and the elimination of unnecessary duplication of tests. Better care coordination helps with faster discharge planning, shorter length of stay, and fewer readmissions. Hospitals have an extensive reporting burden to health plans, government agencies, and disease-specific registries. Health information exchanges support hospitals with these reporting requirements. Since information exchanges have data from multiple healthcare organizations, they are well-positioned to develop regional utilization reports helping hospitals to plan operationally and strategically.
How do you see data exchange evolving in the coming years, particularly with advancements in AI and business intelligence?
LANES currently supports hundreds of participants and plans to onboard many more this year. The underlying data is expected to grow not only horizontally, but also vertically, as richer data sets become available from existing participants. The high amount and richness of data allows LANES to develop powerful analytics and business intelligence solutions. Some participants have their own teams of data analysts that can benefit from data repositories and advanced query tools (e.g., Google BigQuery). Smaller entities, on the other hand, may not have their own analysts. These organizations benefit from dashboards and data visualization tools to gain actionable insights. While artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in healthcare for specific use cases, particularly in imaging and managing customer interactions, we believe that the benefits of AI adoption need to be carefully compared to the inherent risks, e.g., AI hallucinations and patient privacy. Therefore, LANES’ current focus is on supporting human decision-makers with rich data products while continuing to monitor AI applications and investments.
