The innovations that have come out of the healthcare industry in the past several years are due in large part to the strength of health informatics in Northern Kentucky. That’s because the region has emerged as a leader in the field of data-driven insights in health and science.

Northern Kentucky and the surrounding region have long been leaders in healthcare innovations.

  • The live oral polio vaccine
  • Benadryl
  • FAST stroke response

are just some of the healthcare innovations that were developed here. Today, inroads into modern healthcare opportunities, like the PulsePoint Respond app, continue to be made. And they are supported by a growing health informatics network. A network that is backed by:

  • A skilled workforce
  • Specialized academic programs
  • Local government support and initiatives
  • Small-business incubators
  • World-class infrastructure systems

Understanding Healthcare IT in Northern Kentucky 

Health informatics is the fusion of:

  • Data
  • Information Technology

People in the field of health informatics want to improve health outcomes. They use data and computer science to find actionable outcomes.

The goal of healthcare informatics is to discover ways to:

  • Improve general patient care
  • Improve surgical and clinical outcomes
  • Streamline care processes
  • Make healthcare more cost-efficient and effective
  • Develop proactive care opportunities

Healthcare IT in Northern Kentucky

For health informatics to be effective, IT systems and processes are used to retrieve and store large batches of data – from patient care to research. This data is then:

  • Collated
  • Cross-checked
  • Charted
  • Analyzed 

by teams of professional analysts and data scientists. The information that they uncover will be used by lab scientists and medical professionals to change care techniques.

Northern Kentucky’s Health Informatics Education Opportunities

There are 25 four-year universities and 11 community and technical colleges across the Northern Kentucky region. Many of these schools offer students an opportunity to undertake a health informatics education. There are classes that can help people just starting out, and ones that provide current professionals with an opportunity to reskill or just level up their knowledge.

  • The University of Cincinnati offers several different educational tracks for students who want to enter the field of health informatics. Those include:
    • Bachelor of Science in Health Information Management
    • Associate of Applied Science in Health Information Systems
    • Medical Coder Certificate
    • Master of Health Informatics

As an added bonus, SmartAsset has named the Cincinnati region as the best city in the nation for college graduates four years in a row.

  • Northern Kentucky University (NKU) has a specific Health Informatics degree program. This four-year course helps students build a foundational level of detail before focusing in on specific, and current, healthcare needs. 

This track at NKU has been ranked as one of the top 5 health informatics programs in the nation as the home of the Institute for Health Innovation.

  • Students looking to enter the health informatics field might also consider taking classes through the Kentucky Community & Technical College System. The Health Information Technology program offered through the system involves classroom instruction, learning experiences in the campus lab, and practical exposure with healthcare professionals.

Regional Advantages For Healthcare IT in Northern Kentucky

The Northern Kentucky region is uniquely positioned to support the growth of Health Informatics thanks to its:

  • Strong infrastructure
  • Education pipeline
  • Innovation support
  • Economic incentives

A wired wonder

With a high proliferation of fiber optic cables, the region has been named “one of the most wired communities in the world.” And that’s important in an industry like health informatics, where data and digital access need to travel quickly and freely. 

Energy experts recognize this as well. Duke Energy ranked the region in the top 3 in the country for its fiber distribution. 

An educated workforce

There are over 1.5M eligible workers living in the region. Many are graduates of the numerous universities and colleges that sit inside a 75-mile radius across the region.

Business incubators

The region is home to more than a dozen business incubators that are poised to support small business success. 

Tax incentive programs

There are several incentive programs that can be utilized by companies looking to grow in the health informatics industry. Those include:

Available to tech companies who want to expand in the region.

This incentive can be used for new, or expanded, technology services.

Northern Kentucky can provide growing businesses access to several growth incentive programs that cover everything from property taxes to capital investments.

Health Informatics Success Stories 

There are numerous companies in the region who are using health informatics teams. Two with recent successes are:

  • Medpace, located in Cincinnati, is a full-service, clinical research organization. Their health informatics specialists “architect, mine, analyze, and visualize clinical trial data to inform study design choices for pharmaceutical development.”  These efforts have helped to overhaul the way clinical trials for obesity are developed and set new biomarkers for neuroscience trials.
  • Newport-based Ethos Labs provides targeted medical testing and assessments. The analytics team works in areas that include method development and validation experiments to help develop new paths to patient treatment plans.
  • PPD’s Central Lab provides integrated solutions for clinical trial data collection, management, and analysis. Using Preclarus™ lab solutions, it ensures standardized testing and real-time data visibility, globally. 

Future Trends in Health Informatics

Two of the biggest trends in health informatics are the use of AI and the introduction of big data. They can make powerful changes when used independently, but their true impact will be felt when they are conjoined.

The predictive, proactive nature of AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is altering much of the healthcare landscape, and that includes healthcare informatics. It can move the mechanics of the field faster, and deeper, than ever before. AI can look at a wider range of datasets to identify longer-term care patterns. Human specialists can then analyze these results, validate them, and create actionable next steps.

This will be a particularly valuable tool in the event there is another large-scale disease outbreak.

The role of big data

AI outputs will only be as strong as the information they parse which is why data collection also has a growing importance. The collection of data in the healthcare space has always been important. What has changed has been the opportunity to collect and store that data in an easily accessible way. 

Every data point, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, can now play an important role in every aspect of care and management. That’s because AI and machine learning (ML) may be able to parse that data faster and to deeper levels.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA utilizes both AI and large datasets to bring focused automation tasks to healthcare. It can streamline everything from patient records to schedules. While this has applications across administrative tasks, its real value may be in the way it can be implemented to enhance patient care.

The Growing Business of Health Informatics in Northern Kentucky

Health informatics is an industry that pulses with innovation and exploration. The industry is not only finding new ways to analyze data to improve patient outcomes, but it is also folding in new data points that come out of emerging healthcare solutions. Or, to put it another way: health informatics produces information that fuels innovation and those innovations produce new information for health informatics to continue this cycle.

The Northern Kentucky region is uniquely positioned to support both sides of this growth. And  BE NKY Growth Partnership is a big part of that support. BE NKY is the region’s economic development company. The programs and services they provide help companies of all sizes expand, plan, and grow.

If your company is ready to expand its footprint in health informatics in Northern Kentucky, contact BE NKY today.