I met recently with a group of very smart people from a scrappy, inventive healthcare system. I wanted to brainstorm with them about creative ways to use real-time data to improve the quality of healthcare, a subject I love to discuss. I asked what this team would do if it could easily access and use real-time data. And I heard…nothing.

I looked around, assuming somebody had forgotten to unmute their mic. That wasn’t it. Finally, a senior member of the team spoke up. “We used to do this kind of thinking all the time,” he said. “Then we adopted an electronic health record ecosystem that limits our use of real-time data to a specific set of tools.” These limits, he was saying, proscribe the boundaries of their imaginations.

Most of us are wired to do the best we can with what we’ve got, and today’s means of accessing data in real time are limited, difficult to use, and inflexible. Innovators spend all of their time figuring out how to get the real-time data they need, rather than spending their time on how to use real-time data in ways that could make a real difference for patients and healthcare providers.

Lack of access to real-time data is crippling healthcare innovation

Real-time data, and the actionable insights we can glean from them, have transformed industries from retail to financial services and beyond. In healthcare, innovative startups and tech companies envision a world in which AI and machine learning enable precision care and seamless self-care. But everyone soon learns that getting solutions from the pilot stage to wide-scale deployment is an arduous, uncertain journey where app maintenance, not innovation, is the consuming focus.

There are no satisfactory solutions – only methods that everyone is forced to use. And as promising as these methods first look, the story is the same: The methods are too limiting in what data can be accessed, too limiting in how quickly they can be modified, and require difficult-to-find talent. The current limitations leave us settling for half-baked apps that are too narrow in scope, too difficult to use and too costly to maintain.

And the problem goes deeper than just preventing healthcare systems from efficiently implementing innovative solutions. The situation has persisted so long that it’s created a kind of Stockholm Syndrome – a feeling of entrapment that stifles innovative ideas before they’re hatched.

Better tools open new horizons

We know from looking at other business sectors thatcreating value from real-time data requires:

• Interoperability that enables easyand secure data flow
• Rapid self-serve ways of accessing data
• Freedom to securely access and explore all available data
• Flexibility to easily adopt, customize, and scale data standards

Lifting the ceiling

We formed Medcurio to free ourselves from the real-time data limitations that we faced for more than a decade and invented a no-code API solution that enables real-time access to EHR and other healthcare data.

We want to liberate others to do what they imagine. Solutions that have real-time access to all the data they need to enable patients to navigate a complex care journey, getting the right care at the right time from their care team. Or that allow healthcare to make better operational decisions to improve scheduling and staffing. Or that enable doctors and nurses to get more and better work done with less effort. Or that improve patient flow through the emergency department.  Or that…

Once you have access to the right tools, you will discover that you have the power to create the future you want.