This month marks the five-year anniversary of when the world virtually shut down after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The pandemic permanently altered how we work, approach personal health, and leverage technology. It also transformed healthcare data practices in ways that continue to shape the industry today. In this blog post, we’ll examine some of the biggest lessons we’ve learned from the pandemic and how they shape our businesses today.
1. Emergency preparedness: Then vs. now
Over the last five years, healthcare organizations have given a lot more thought as to how well they are prepared for emergency. That involves how they prepare and mobilize their staff, to securing their facilities, to managing the supply chain.
When it comes to data, prior to the pandemic, hospitals often relied on static reports with delayed data. Emergency preparedness plans existed but were rarely stress-tested for the scale of a global pandemic.
Now, we’ve learned our lessons from being tested in real-time during the pandemic. Some of the ways healthcare organizations have shored up their emergency preparedness from a data standpoint include:
- Real-time bed capacity: With a focus on real-time dashboards, hospitals can now help staff allocate resources immediately.
- Greater transparency: With access to timelier data, communications teams can now share accurate data with the public more quickly, improving trust.
- Expanded clinical data use: Many hospitals have focused on integrating clinical and social determinants of health (SDOH) data, helping clinicians better understand patient needs beyond traditional metrics.
Evergreen Health is a good example of an organization that was able to quickly pivot during the pandemic because of a strong data infrastructure. Read our case study of how the organization used data in its first-in-the-nation COVID response.
2. Data Trust: From Informal to Institutionalized
One of the lessons that healthcare organizations learned during the pandemic was that they needed to do a better job of ensuring data trust. How could healthcare professionals be expected to make fast and informed data-driven decisions when the data itself was untrustworthy?
Prior to the pandemic, hospitals didn’t prioritize data consistency, and data definitions often varied across departments. Many organizations lacked formal data governance structures. Now, more hospitals have focused on data trust. Data governance has shifted from being an afterthought to being a foundational aspect of decision-making.
- Standardized definitions: Smart hospitals now uniformly define terms such as “ICU capacity” across their healthcare systems.
- Transparent communication: Hospitals increasingly disclose data methodologies, boosting stakeholder confidence.
- Governance structures: Multidisciplinary data committees, once rare, are now standard to ensure data integrity.
3. Health equity: From oversight to central focus
Health equity is certainly one area that has greatly evolved over the last five years. Before the pandemic, data collection on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities was inconsistent and underutilized.
But public health experts quickly learned that COVID affected different populations in drastically different ways, and this provided the push that many healthcare organizations needed to prioritize health equity efforts.
Here are several ways that organizations have focused more on health equity:
- Granular data collection: Many hospitals now track patient outcomes at the zip code level to identify local disparities.
- Targeted interventions: With more precise data, healthcare systems are able to better launch mobile testing clinics and community outreach programs.
- Policy integration: Health equity metrics are now increasingly integrated into quality improvement initiatives and funding decisions.
4. Innovation: Pandemic-driven changes that stuck
Before the pandemic, telehealth was in a rut. The technology faced regulatory hurdles and had limited patient adoption. That wasn’t the only innovation area that had trouble gaining steam. Interoperability initiatives weren’t getting off the ground as we wanted them to – data-sharing across organizations was slow and fragmented. And advanced analytics initiatives were only used by the most forward-thinking health systems, with hospitals too frequently looking at past data to make decisions. Here’s how some of these technologies have advanced in the last five years:
- Telehealth boom: Usage increased by over 150% in 2020 and has remained significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels.
- Rapid data-sharing: Collaboration between research institutions accelerated vaccine development and public health strategies.
- Predictive analytics: Hospitals now use predictive models to forecast patient volumes and staff accordingly.
Innovations that were accelerated during the pandemic because they were spurred by necessity have now become standard, with telehealth and predictive analytics now integral to patient care.
5. Global perspective: Pandemic lessons with lasting impact
According to the WHO, as of February 2025, there have been more than 777 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 7 million deaths worldwide in the last 5 years. These numbers highlight the scale of the crisis and the critical role data plays in global health coordination.
The pandemic has also shaped the way ordinary citizens engage with data and use it to make more informed personal health decisions.
- Global data collaboration: Pre-pandemic, international data-sharing was slow; now, global dashboards provide near real-time updates.
- Public engagement: Data literacy has improved as the public became more familiar with terms like “positivity rate” and “flatten the curve.”
- Personal risk assessment: People have become more proactive in assessing data to make their own decisions about staying safe in the community. A personal example is that I have frequently used publicly available wastewater data to track COVID cases in my community and assess my own personal risk.
Conclusion: Charting a resilient future
Five years after COVID burst onto the global scene, the healthcare industry stands at a pivotal point. Many practices born out of emergency are now ingrained in daily operations. From Evergreen Health’s real-time dashboards to the widespread adoption of telehealth, the pandemic forced rapid innovation that has fundamentally reshaped how data is used in healthcare.
Moving forward, healthcare organizations must build on these advancements by:
- Strengthening data infrastructures
- Maintaining transparent communication
- Prioritizing health equity
- Fostering cross-industry collaboration
The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for change. By embracing the lessons learned, we can ensure a future where healthcare is more agile, equitable, and patient-centered.
Kathy started her career in television news writing and producing. She then worked at a public relations agency and as a freelance writer before joining Dimensional Insight in 2013.
Kathy has presented at several events in both healthcare and wine & spirits, including the Healthcare Innovation Summit, the Healthcare IT Marketing & PR Conference (HITMC), and the WSWA Women’s Leadership Council (WLC) Conference. Kathy is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and a member of Women of the Vine & Spirits.
She is also host of the Smarter Healthcare Podcast (www.smarthcpodcast.com) and is a member of the Forbes Communications Council.
Kathy holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Boston University.
- HIMSS25: Reflecting on a Successful Event - March 12, 2025
- 5 Years Later: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic - March 4, 2025
- What We’re Looking Forward to at HIMSS25 - February 26, 2025
