From electronic medical records to telemedicine, technology has transformed healthcare. University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Medicine, consistently recognized as a leading academic medical center, uses technology in myriad ways to improve patient care.

With five hospitals, three rehabilitation hospitals and seven regional medical centers, Penn Medicine collects a lot of data. Vasee Sivasegaran, corporate director of infrastructure at Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System, said that although it’s a struggle to manage, it benefits the health system in the long run.

“The more data we collect, the more information we’re able to gather,” he told Stu Miniman (@stu) and Brian Gracely (@bgracely), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team. “We’ve had some good use-case scenarios where we’ve been able to track patient care in a positive way.”

As with many industries, few healthcare companies have found ways to use data to positively affect business operations. That’s Sivasegaran’s mission.

“We’re one of the top 10 health systems in the country, so we treat many advanced cases,” he said. “I want to build solutions that will enable our care providers to make a patient feel better.”

Working with predictive medicine

Sivasegaran said his data analytics and data science teams have been working with predictive medicine. “If you can identify at-risk congestive heart failure patients and determine if a heart transplant is better for them, we have an opportunity to save lives,” he said. “If you can wean someone off of ventilators sooner, there is a financial cost savings and the patient’s experience is improved dramatically.”

Data also allows Sivasegaran to see trends, which he can use to help enhance patient care and improve business operations. “Data can provide valuable real-time information to key decision-makers,” he said.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE