Data flow = care flow

I recently spoke with a data analyst who was excited about their latest project—a tool that pulls from various data sources to identify "at-risk patients" using AI. In their eyes, it was a game changer, predicting costly admissions before they happen.

But when I talked to the clinicians using it, their response was different. “Great, another list.” They’re already buried under a mountain of patients lists and alerts, each one screaming for attention like a cat that just heard a can opener.

That’s because most forget that data flow = care flow. If your data isn’t directly tied to the right point in the care process, it’s practically useless. Clinicians don’t have time to sift through dashboards and turn data into action. They need information that’s already woven into their workflow, guiding them to take the right steps at the right time.

Here’s a real example of how things can go wrong when data isn’t integrated properly. Every day, a care team received a list of patients who were just discharged from the hospital. But instead of being helpful, this list created more work. Here’s why:

(1) The team got a list with discharged patient details, including their diagnosis (ICD-10 code), insurance informations, facility they got discharged from, etc.

(2) They had to copy each ICD-10 code into another spreadsheet to see what the diagnosis meant and whether it was urgent. The urgency was based on rules in their contracts.

(3) If a patient’s diagnosis was flagged as urgent, the team then had to check the patient’s insurance details. For example, if the patient was with Aetna, they might not need to act immediately, but if the patient was on Medicaid, they had to prioritize immediate follow-up. This step was guided by a flowchart.

(4) For patients who needed urgent action, the team had to manually call the patient and then send a fax with all the discharge information to the patient’s primary care physician. Each fax took 15 minutes.

So, every day, the team was stuck manually triaging this list—cross-checking sources, making calls, and sending faxes. What the data team thought was a solution ended up being a massive, time-sucking burden for the clinicians.

(But hey, don’t feel too sorry for them! They recently implemented Awell, and we cut their time spent per patient by 90% by making sure data flow = care flow.)

Concrete next step

The next time you deliver a patient list for X, remember: data flow = care flow. Don’t get distracted by the next shiny object until you’ve nailed this connection. Without it, you’re just handing over another half-baked solution that creates more work than it saves.

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Quick intro: we’re Thomas and Rik, building Awell - a low-code platform allowing care teams to design, implement and optimize care flows in days, not months. CareOps grew out of our years spent improving CareOps at innovative providers.