CANADA we invest in understanding data and what it ’ s telling us , we try hard to do things that make a difference and create better outcomes .”
A common source of truth Through its Digital Thread , GE Healthcare has aggressively rationalized its application landscape to achieve these levels of technological advancement . Like any large enterprise , it had evolved from an operation that ran its own data centers and databases and deployed point solutions , leading to thousands upon thousands of applications speaking to each other , making IT incredibly complex .
“ The mission of Digital Thread is to turn that spaghetti of applications into a consistent global set of pillar applications , which form the foundation of the business ,” Richards explains . “ When you have a consistent data set across the organization , you have a common source of truth . Then , you can start building applications and analytical tools which sit on the foundation , allowing you to do incredibly powerful things .”
Fully harnessing the data driven by this cleaner , more uniform process is , in Zimmerman ’ s words , “ a wonderfully large , hard problem to tackle .” With 37 years of experience in this industry , he is still thrilled by the advancements he has seen and is continuing to help develop , because he is able to see the ever-improving outcomes from the inside .
“ One of the biggest challenges is the fact that data is largely defined by individual health systems , meaning there ’ s a huge quantity of it and it is often highly fragmented . This isn ’ t just in healthcare , of course – this is across the world at large , and really , it ’ s only in the early stages of being tackled . You have to be able to understand data in all its forms , so that it can be correlated and applied .”
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