Data is one key to healthcare quality improvement – storytelling is another

BOSTON – The daily deluge of depressing headlines notwithstanding, it should be heartening to know that "if you look at the data, the world is not going to hell in a handbasket," said Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Seattle-base Providence St. Indeed, said Compton-Phillips in the opening keynote of the HIMSS Machine Learning and AI for Healthcare event here in Boston, if one looks at the numbers for global health and life expectancy, there's been a steady and significant improvement of worldwide well-being over the past half-century. "Of all the times to be alive on earth, the best time is now," she said. "It just doesn't always feel that way." And the primary reason things have improved to that extent? Not just raw data, but the use of that data to tell stories that enable positive changes – and the way those stories can in turn enable a deeper understanding of what those data insights are telling us. "We've been doing well because of the scientific method: seeing how we are, applying learning and then improving," said Compton-Phillips.