Unleashing the Power of Cloud in Healthcare

By Joseph Rostock, CTO, Inovalon

Joseph Rostock, CTO, Inovalon

Changes in IT Operating Model

As the healthcare industry shifts from volume to value, the healthcare ecosystem demands comprehensive data-driven solutions. An effective CTO/CIO helps develop corporate strategy. This is particularly true for technology companies, where products and services are technology driven. However, having a great volume of data is not enough, effectively managing the data and developing meaningful solutions is what creates value. Inovalon is an industry leader driving innovation that delivers unparalleled insight and value utilizing its big data, cloud-based, transactional platform. A larger number of solutions are now built on the cloud-native technologies, allowing them to run seamlessly in our private cloud or a commercial cloud. This approach facilitated a transformation to an agile environment, enabling greater collaboration and efficiencies to better drive the development of our solutions in a streamlined manner, delivering value for payors, providers, pharma/ life sciences, specialty pharmacy, device manufacturers, diagnostic companies and consumers—all segments of the healthcare landscape.

The Biggest Obstacles in a More Agile and Outcomes Based Model

In an “agile” world, “rapid time to market” means faster product development.

Inovalon’s development model follows agile methodologies for its platforms, with the goal of helping our customers deliver value to their customers; this includes everything from innovation to revenue generation. This commitment to accelerated delivery and continuous drive for innovation can only be achieved if equal commitment and rigor is applied to planning, requirements and architecture. Often, business partners are already familiar with the agile mantra of “continuous integration/ continuous deployment” (CI/CD), but they must be guided to support the planning and prioritization that enables CI/CD. A significant obstacle that technologists face in working in a more agile and outcomes-based model is the need to have shared and aligned priorities across all teams. In addition, organizations will often fall into a hybrid agile model, which requires its own discipline. As with any methodology, proper adoption and governance are the keys to success.

Skills Required to be Successful in the New Enterprise Landscape

Technology leaders should possess a healthy balance of technology and business aptitudes. It is this balance that often separates a technology leader, who remains solely within the technical domain, and one who can meld technology advancements with corporate strategy and objectives. At Inovalon, we are evolving and constantly innovating as the healthcare market transitions to value-based care models. I believe technology for the sake of technology is rarely an effective business case. The financial statement—the bottom line—is the driver in business, and an effective technology leader must guide his or her organization to advance technological solutions and innovations in support of business goals and objectives.

Future Technology Innovation

One of the many exciting developments that has emerged, based on the healthcare industry’s transformation is personal and connected device technologies. The power that connected technology brings in any industry is almost limitless. The ability to utilize technology to measure, analyze and improve the quality of patient care will further transform healthcare. For example, imagine an elderly patient who recently had a hip replacement. Without integrated technology he or she would have to be assessed periodically for range of motion, volume of movement, etc. However with an integrated and connected device, the patient’s day-to-day wellness can be monitored, assessed and acted upon to provide better and timelier care. This is just one example; again, the opportunities are almost limitless.

Another technology I find interesting is blockchain. Models are emerging to advance the management of patient data using public and private keys. This is especially relevant given the growing number of use cases in healthcare where services are highly interconnected, but data management methods remain unique. All very exciting!