As hospital and technology leaders try to make sense of the vast flood of structured and unstructured information unleashed these past many years – seeking ways to actually put it all to work toward better care at lower cost – it can be dizzying, hard to decide just where to start first.

At the HIMSS Big Data & Healthcare Analytics Forum, which takes place June 13 and 14 in San Francisco, dozens of forward-thinking healthcare leaders will offer insights into ways that deluge of digital data can be directed toward successful value-based improvement projects.

Analytics means nothing without action, so many speakers will be focusing on how to help lead IT teams, clinicians, data professionals and health systems staff, and help navigate through the constant change that has become the status quo in this industry.

Case in point: Cleveland Clinic Chief Information Officer Ed Marx, whose keynote address will focus on setting strategic course and leading through innovation and transformation. While "most of us would prefer not to change," he said, in the fast-evolving world of 21st Century healthcare, that's a luxury few can afford.

But making use of electronic health record data to effect positive change is a tall order – which is why a diverse slate of speakers over the two-day events will offer their own hard-won insights into how to data, analytics, machine learning, precision medicine tools and other emerging techniques can be put to work driving improvements in clinical, financial and operational efficiencies.

[Also: How Cleveland Clinic CIO Ed Marx helps his staff navigate change]

For example, David Kho, MD, chief medical information officer at ChenMed, will offer advice on the all-important practice of data governance, outlining best practices for managing the availability, usability, consistency, integrity and security of your data.

And Michael Johnson, data scientist at St. Charles Health System, will share his experiences building in-house, enterprise-specific predictive analytics initiatives, which can be much more rewarding than relying on outside vendors with cookie-cutter modeling capacities – offering insights that he says are often barely better than just flipping a coin.

To borrow another metaphor, an overreliance on too many disparate IT systems at once can often feel like "too many cooks" when it comes to managing clinical data. Pushwaz Virk, MD, medical director of the Center for Clinical Analytics and Business Intelligence at Providence St Joseph Health, will explain how to juggle multiple vendors and internal projects at once, streamlining analytics projects toward better outcomes

On day two, a panel of speakers, including Ed Marx; Mohsen Saidinejad, director of patient experience at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; and Megan Mahoney, MD, chief of general primary care at Stanford, will focus on the importance of clinician workflow, and of building a culture of continuous improvement.

Meanwhile, Shrujan Amin and John Supra of the Care Coordination Institute (which is part of the Greenville Health System and Palmetto Health) will explain how CCI has revamped its data strategy, IT infrastructure and clinical workflows to advance its goals for population health management and target gaps in care.

And Peggy Binzer, executive director of the Alliance for Quality and Patient Safety, will explore the security implications of big data and analytics, explaining how the privacy protections of the Patient Safety Act can, rather than being an impediment, actually help foster innovation and performance improvement.

The HIMSS Big Data and Healthcare Analytics Forum is scheduled for June 13 and 14 at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco. Register here

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com