Properly Managing Various Data Sources To Understand The Patient Journey

By John Giannouris, Vice President, Specialty Data Strategy, and Consulting Services, IQVIA and Chris Beggs, Senior Director of Data Strategy and Privacy at IQVIA

Much like the landscape of data collection and analytics, specialty products are unique and complex. These complexities impact the ability to understand the patient’s journey. Most patients interact with multiple sites of care, from pharmacies, patient service hubs, and primary provider offices, to alternate sites of care, such as infusion centers, hospitals, and clinics. This disparity of location type typically results in fragmented data due to the way in which data is captured and procured.

As such, an incomplete view of patient care can be expected. Unfortunately, differences that exist in the data elements between sources can lead to the arduous task of piecing together the patient’s path when specialty providers are not providing all data elements needed to link patients, their healthcare providers (HCPs), and payers.

Linkage of patient data introduces the opportunity to include not only additional patient characteristics such as social determinants of health, but also more clinically rich data such as lab results, patient adherence, and other longitudinal behaviors. Clear linkage of patient touch points and pathways across time and source are a must, as is the need for consistency of common identifiers that can be used for patient linkage.