More Data Won't Fix Health Care—Collaboration Will

Health care generates more data every year: wearables tracking sleep and heart rate, diagnostics catching problems earlier, records holding decades of history. 

And yet about 43 percent of US hospitals routinely send, receive, find, and integrate patient data across systems, and that share drops to 16 to 17 percent once a record reaches a long-term care facility, a post-acute provider, or a behavioral health specialist. The farther a patient travels from where their records began, the more of that history goes dark. That gap, not sensors or algorithms, is the bottleneck holding precision medicine back. 

Access to data isn't the same as access to care. Closing that gap takes everyone. 

Consider two people with the same problem. A servicemember builds a medical record over years of service, then transitions to care from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and expects that history to follow. A rural patient starts treatment over telemedicine, then needs a specialist 200 miles away who never sees the initial patient history. 

Aligning health records between the Department of Defense and VA has taken patience. More than 7.4 million shared patients have visible records in both systems, out of the 18 million veterans and servicemembers they serve. 

Precision medicine can only deliver on its promise when a person's data follow them, not just their provider. 

Getting two systems to share records is one challenge; getting care to people far from either is another. Consider the largest working example of a public, private, and nonprofit health system functioning at scale: veterans' care. 

More than four million veterans live in rural areas, with less access to care. Nationally, 20 percent of rural veterans lack home internet, a gap that has narrowed through broadband partnerships and device lending. 

In fiscal year 2023, the VA delivered telehealth to more than 770,000 rural veterans across 2.9 million visits, and 40 percent of VA patients received some care virtually. That happened because government infrastructure, private-sector platforms, and community partners moved in the same direction. One example: Veterans without home internet can visit an Accessing Telehealth through Local Area Stations site, housed inside an American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars post, for a video visit with a VA provider. 

That is not a veterans-only story. It is a template. 

A recent investigation found nearly three million Americans live in counties that lack both health-care providers and reliable high-speed internet. Government can set standards and fund infrastructure that industry alone cannot build. Industry can bring tools and expertise. Nonprofits carry something neither government nor industry replicates: trust and a presence in the communities that need help most. All of it depends on people choosing to use what gets built. 

The same bottlenecks holding back rural veterans—thin broadband, workforce shortages, fragmented records—are holding back underserved communities everywhere. The fix looks the same. 

This is where AI earns its place: a link between systems. VA's Care Assessment Need model uses data to flag which veterans face the highest risk of hospitalization, so care teams reach out first. AI cannot fix a broadband gap or rewrite a reimbursement policy. What it can do is shrink the distance between data and action: turning a flood of readings into a short list a clinician can act on and routing expertise to where it is needed most. 

Deloitte's own research finds a similar pattern: About 80 percent of health-care executives say collaborations with other industries are now a priority, and 63 percent expect strategic partnerships to matter more this year. 

Solving significant health challenges requires participation from government, industry, and the nonprofit community.  The rural patient 200 miles from a specialist and the servicemember whose file should be waiting at the VA do not need more data about them. They need the data that already exist to catch up to them. That is the promise of precision medicine, and reaching it will take everyone. 

This document contains general information only, and Deloitte is not, by means of this document, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This document is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this document. 

As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.