A decades-long dream of many healthcare professionals, to transition from cumbersome paper record-keeping to electronic storage of medical records, is now being realized. Nearly 60 percent of providers have already shifted to storing their records on computers or in the cloud. But due to the cost and complexity of adopting electronic records, many other providers have resisted this trend.

More providers need to follow suit, as the consequences for the healthcare industry are far-reaching. Thanks to the vast quantities of data stored in digital spaces, medical records can be shared between different departments and providers, breaking down artificial barriers. That will make it easier for healthcare professionals to provide better care; for example, they can more accurately understand ahead of time how their patients will respond to certain treatments.

The Impact of Big Data

As more and more providers shift their medical records into the digital space, scientists can “mine” this data for insights into healthcare across entire populations, utilizing a process known as big data. Approximately 4 to 5 billion laboratory tests are performed in the United States each year, from blood testing to MRIs. Patients generate information on a vast scale every time they undergo a test or diagnosis.

Sifting through this data for certain patterns and relationships will enable healthcare providers to spot important trends and also understand how diseases function on a molecular level. For example, by comparing how patients with similar characteristics respond to certain drugs, healthcare providers can hope to learn which patients are most vulnerable to a drug’s side effects.

Gathering Information from Genetic Tests

In the future, as the cost of sequencing a patient’s genetic codes continues to fall, the amount of information available to providers will increase substantially. This will provide a more nuanced perspective of an individual’s health. At the moment, the relationship between a person’s genes and the risk of developing a specific disease is poorly understand. Most disorders aren’t caused by a single gene, but dozens or hundreds of genes working in tandem.

Thus, for scientists, hunting down a disease’s genetic provenance is a difficult and laborious process. But as more genetic information becomes available, scientists will get much better at spotting relationships between diseases and genes. This will help doctors predict the likelihood that their patients will develop certain diseases, improving the prospects of early detection and intervention.

The Future of Healthcare Will Scale Up

According to Harold Thimbleby, a professor of computer science at Swansea University, the process of mining data for new insights will benefit from economies of scale: meaning that as healthcare infrastructure is scaled up, costs of adding new patients will begin to fall rapidly, thus driving further technical development. Adapting to this rapidly changing landscape will not be easy, and so hospitals will benefit from hiring talented and adaptable administrators who can navigate the complexity. You can learn more here about obtaining an online degree in healthcare administration.

The substitution of conventional paper records for electronic files makes healthcare easier and more efficient. It may even be possible to customize and tailor unique treatments for every patient. Better diagnostics and record-keeping will ultimately produce better health outcomes, but it will also force healthcare professionals to adapt to this changing landscape. The federal government has set aside billions of dollars in bonus payments as incentives for doctors who shift toward electronic records. That will make the transition easier to bear.