The problem isn’t about data shortage. Rather, it's about data access. One of the more relatable analogies I’ve heard was from Ben Seyden at Salesforce. He said that we’re like Scrooge McDuck standing on top of a mountain of gold coins. We could dive in headfirst, but the data isn't accessible...there’s a giant vault cover over it. We can’t turn it into better experiences, better engagement, or better outcomes. It’s locked away in not just one vault, but in many cases, a hundred different vaults. Think EHRs, marketing tools, and CRMs.
The Cost of the Inaccessible Vault
Fragmented healthcare data isn't just a minor annoyance for IT departments anymore. It's a cross-departmental issue and the main blocker for personalized patient care.
Consider these facts:
- 80% of healthcare data is unstructured.
It’s stuck in text files, faxes, and PDFs. - 97% goes unused.
It’s scattered across platforms and systems that don’t talk to one another. - Her lab results live in one system.
- Her medication lives in a different one.
- Her insurance policy, her call center record, and her digital ad engagement are all stored separately.
- Collect
Data 360 ingests all your data, whether it’s from an EHR, a claim system, a CRM, or a digital engagement platform. - Connect & Unify
This is the magic step. The platform links all that disparate information to a single individual, resolving duplicates and unifying IDs to create a single, comprehensive patient profile. - Activate
Finally, the unified profile is turned into action. That means driving personalized journeys, sending timely reminders, generating real-time insights, and powering seamless, cross-channel experiences.
We now know that 80% to 90% of health outcomes are determined by the non-clinical data sitting outside the EMR, like social, economic, and environmental information. When this data is siloed, it hurts our ability to be prescriptive…and help patients get the care they need.
It’s also a problem for patient expectations.
Patients today expect the same personalized experiences they get everywhere else. They’re used to digital experiences in every other avenue of their lives. They can track a coffee order, see how quickly their pizza is being made, and even change flights in an app. But when it comes to their own healthcare, they often still get a generic letter and hold music.
The data is there to make the experience better. But because it’s stuck in silos, we end up sending generic messages to unique human beings. Our data isn't serving the consumer, and it's just stuck in our systems. That leaves us with an incomplete view of our patients.
The Jane Doe Story: Seeing the Incomplete View
To understand the real-world impact of this problem, let's meet Jane Doe. Jane has all sorts of different health and engagement information:
They are all in different formats and, most frustratingly, are all under different IDs. The result? When Jane calls the clinic, the call center representative doesn’t see her full pharmacy history. When marketing sends her a preventative care reminder, they don’t realize she has already scheduled that appointment.
Every department is doing its job, but no one sees Jane for who she is. We end up serving her as an MRN number, a member ID, or a small piece of who she is, rather than as a person in need of continuous, coordinated care.
The Solution: Collect, Connect, and Activate
The problem is solvable. As shown in our Unlocking Data 360 webinar, healthcare systems like Ascension are finding the solution by implementing a strategy that moves data from potential to power.
This strategy hinges on a single, unified platform from Salesforce called Data 360. Solutions like Salesforce Data 360 bring all those fragments together into one living, unified view. Here's a great diagram courtesy of our friends from Salesforce.
The process is simple, yet powerful:
When we do this, data stops sitting in a vault of potential and becomes the engine of individualized care. This is how we move beyond the data paradox and finally give patients the holistic, digital-first experiences they expect and deserve.
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