Health Care Trends: Kaiser Leads Industry into the Data Era

Executive Summary

Frustrated hospital executives are under increasing pressure to control the high cost of delivering care. As a result, they’re now using newly available data to evaluate certain medical products, especially high-end devices and implants for orthopedics and cardiology. Kaiser Permanente’s national Total Joint Replacement Registry, for example, works by having a number of interoperable systems feeding information into the database. The goal of the database is comprehensive, yet straightforward, with an emphasis on collecting details of failure rates, identifying patients at risk, identifying the most effective techniques and implant devices, tracking implant usage and costs, and monitoring and supporting recalls and advisories.