Data Virtualization: How It Works And What Benefits We Can Get From It

In the healthcare sector, data virtualization (DV) is gaining traction. It's still a hot subject, with many leading industry experts hailing it as a game-changer.

The majority of these experts are speculating about how this ostensibly novel approach to data processing will aid in cost reduction and efficiencies. Understandably, this feature, among many others, is piqueing their and our interest.

Interest in data virtualization is increasing.

Although most healthcare organisations have benefited greatly from the digital revolution in terms of value and quality, some are unable to meet the challenge of data convergence due to the ever-present bottlenecks of data silos and disparate structures. Furthermore, even major healthcare conglomerate mergers and acquisitions have resulted in the duplication of records that are explicitly reliant on archaic structures or proprietary code. To make matters worse, entering these systems is accompanied by stringent HIPAA regulations and mandates, as well as high costs.

There is, fortunately, a solution to such a dilemma. It enables effective data integration without requiring physical changes to the data's current position. This is something that virtualization technology can help you with. It enables doctor's offices, clinics, laboratories, treatment centres, hospitals, and other healthcare systems to build a more agile data infrastructure by allowing real-time continuous data access to existing electronic medical records (EMR) or electronic health record (EHR) systems, including patient portals, without modifying the source code.

Data Virtualization's Importance

While the phenomenal growth of data and the adoption of the latest business intelligence (BI) software are two big impetuses for improved data integration, there are other primary benefits that can be accomplished without sacrificing your core business requirements, and this new methodology comes to the rescue, providing the following advantages:

• Faster data access: As healthcare organisations expand, integrating data from various internal and external sources becomes a challenge. Data virtualization allows for faster data access, allowing data to be pulled together from different sources and data silos. Access to sensitive patient information is streamlined via an enterprise-wide data platform's universal interface, regardless of location or format.
• Increased revenue growth and ROI: You can still reap the benefits of data virtualization thanks to an optimised data layer, even though you have existing IT legacy infrastructure capital. Real-time patient data can be accessed with a single data access layer regardless of the type or location of the data, reducing complexity and promoting agile decision-making.
• Data Storage and Cost Savings: Healthcare facilities are faced with ever-increasing budget limitations, so doing more with less has become a necessity. Storage costs can be reduced, and data loss can be avoided, thanks to virtualization technology. By allowing a single, easy-to-use interface across the enterprise, data storage and warehouse costs were reduced.
• Improved Business Agility: A data-driven approach to business agility. Organizations should make decisions based on the most accurate and up-to-date information available because all data can be accessed in real-time. Businesses that achieve business agility through virtualization are better able to adapt to changing market conditions. Any company will benefit from actionable insights, on-demand access to real-time data, an integrated view of the enterprise data, fast response times, intelligent resource sharing, and so on.
• Improved Patient Treatment and Outcomes: Any care continuum must provide improved health and patient satisfaction. As a result, encouraging them to take charge of their own treatment will lead to long-term patient relationships and satisfaction. Access to medical data at the point of care is critical in providing patient-centric treatment in this context. Giving patients access to their health records through patient portals, EHRs, and mobile devices aids in the delivery of accountable care, which leads to better patient outcomes.

Parting Shot: Data Virtualization vs. Data Warehouse

Data virtualization is a promising new data warehousing alternative. It gives you a unified view of all the information in your business. The primary benefits of this new concept are agility, real-time knowledge, time-to-market, remote data access, and, without a doubt, simplicity. Virtualization allows you to access data from anywhere, regardless of whether you have a data warehouse or not. This is a key advantage of virtualization.

The obvious question that arises is: how to improve patient experience in hospitals after spending years building a data warehouse, why do we need data virtualization now? The question cannot be answered with a categorical "yes" or "no." In reality, the response is contingent on a number of factors that must be considered first. Let's not polarise the ideas of virtualization and warehousing, however. The latter, logically, should complement the former. Data warehousing has a number of well-established benefits.

However, with the rise of big data technology, integrating or consolidating all of the rising data, whether structured or unstructured, into a proper proprietary warehouse is becoming a more difficult job. A virtualization solution will provide unparalleled speed, simplicity, and ease of access to data to a larger number of end-users.

Our Healthcare Data Warehouse experts combine our personalised dashboards, reports, and application functionality to create a user-friendly experience that is easy to navigate for staff and multiple users. This helps everyone to have real-time access to relevant information.