This is the third post in the Appian National Health IT Week Series.
Healthcare perhaps even more so than other industries is plagued not just bymassivesilos of data, but also by fragmented workflows acrossthose silos. Workers are constantly switching between multiple applications to completetheir work, duplicating data and opening up a whole lot of opportunities to introduce error.
Solving the data silo problem requires solving the workflow silo problem. And, that's exactly what modern Business Process Management 
(BPM) does. By integrating data and workflow into a single activity Work modern BPM application platforms converge data from a wide variety of enterprise systems, so no matter what a user does, whether heads down task performance, social collaboration with other users, or unstructured problem solving, that data is easily accessible and powerfully actionable.
"Organizations are overwhelmed by application and data sprawl. Data-first design in a process context delivered through a social interface is the next frontier of modern business technology."
Matt Calkins, President and CEO, Appian
Data-first design integrates data navigation across multiple back-end systems, orchestrates accomplishment of user goals, facilitates collaboration among users, and makes complex, ad-hocreporting easy. Key to this new approach is the process context provided by a social interface: anactivity stream of work-related information, collaboration, system-generated alerts, and tasks. But, unlike traditional social media, this work stream is targeted, structured, compliant, and secure. Relevant healthcare data is integrated and displayed within the context of work. Such a news feed increases awareness across the organization and surfaces all the information needed to accomplish both user and organizational goals.
To put it most simply, healthcare data management is really about healthcare process management. And BPMprovides the ideal wayto tackle and solve healthcare data management issues within a completely new paradigm: systematically modeling, executing, using, leveraging, and improving the healthcare processes inwhich healthcare data is managed.
More tomorrow!
Christina Fisher,Healthcare Solutions
This is the thirdpost in the Appian National Health IT Week Series. Read earlier posts here:
