Data Intelligence

As more and more companies harness massive amounts of data to inform their business strategies, data intelligence—or the procurement, management, monetization, security, and protection of data—has become exponentially more important. At the same time, as companies gather more data from products and services, new questions arise, including ownership rights, privacy implications, and protecting innovative uses of this data.

Among the most important developments in data intelligence is the growth in the variety of sources from which data now originates, including customers, medical devices, data lakes, or other repositories. With such vast stores of information, a “big data” solution may be required to realize its benefits, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Here too, new technologies add complexity to legal issues regarding data analytics and intelligence. Add the need to ensure data privacy and security, and the evolving regulations and oversight of data programs, and the legal implications of data intelligence only mount.

But the promise of data intelligence is too great to ignore. Appropriately harnessed, data intelligence can not only produce stronger products and create better go-to-market strategies, but it can allow companies to innovate and build for tomorrow while solving for today.

We need to look no further than the health care space, where the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated access to digital health care. The integration and interaction of virtual health and consumer-focused advertising resulting from the pandemic has created data that allows the world to redefine the health care journey. From the patient onboarding experience to the clinical experience, medication adherence, and tracking the patient’s long-term outcomes, the ability to harness and optimize the patient journey data provides new windows into improving health on a universal scale.

This data intelligence moves the needle in patient care and creates new opportunity for business growth. It can help companies with limited budgets prioritize their business development and consumer advertising efforts, and it can provide physicians necessary insights into the treatments, patient education, interactions, and solutions that can be the difference between life and death. Capturing, harnessing, and optimizing this data is no longer a single factor in the success of digital health care organizations, it is the only factor.

At Foley, we are not only helping our clients solve the question of how to collect data, but we are also assessing whether organizations are properly managing, optimizing, and protecting their data. This is particularly important as agencies like the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Federal Trade Commission, and Medicaid Fraud Control Units have become more sophisticated and are increasingly basing investigations on anomalies in claims history or trends in reimbursement. Here again, Foley helps companies effectively mine their own data so they can anticipate—and, ideally, avoid—government scrutiny.

In this environment, comprehensive, expert-backed guidance to move forward data intelligence programs is critical. Companies need the best help harnessing their data in smart, secure ways so they can both efficiently run and grow their business. At Foley, our approach to data intelligence is multi-faceted. We help our clients understand the often far-reaching implications of who owns data, who has access to it, and who regularly uses it. We delve into the regulatory issues, examining all angles and applications. Most importantly, we understand how businesses use data, the best ways to organize it, innovate with it, mine it, and monetize it.

Security is always a top concern and we advise on how to best secure and protect both data and data strategies. We know there are plenty of data management solutions on the market, and we help our clients parse these solutions, understanding their benefits, challenges, and potential drawbacks.

Areas in which we have recently helped our clients with data intelligence include population health, measuring care provided to populations and using this data to help deliver the right care to the right people; e-commerce, or understanding online consumer behavior; and privacy, which encompasses strategies to help companies protect their data.

In all of our data intelligence work, we take a team-based approach. Foley offers a comprehensive service led by a deep pool of subject matter experts who have years of experience working with companies and entrepreneurs looking at the big picture from a variety of angles. Data concerns cross practice areas, whether it is intellectual property, privacy, or security, making this type of collaborative approach essential for data intelligence.

Our hands-on way of working means that we put ourselves in the shoes of your key customers and clients to understand first-hand your customers’ user experiences. We focus on helping to educate our clients with the ultimate goal of enhancing your company’s business.

Over the years, we have been fortunate to help a variety of companies, big and small, accomplish their data intelligence goals by better harnessing and managing their data with both growth and security in mind. Our clients are diverse in the services they provide and their needs. We work with telemedicine providers, medical and fitness device companies, health insurance companies, health providers, and even start-ups, including AI companies that are creating algorithms for health care applications.

Clients have included a leading provider of reimbursement and compliance risk management tools for hospitals, health care systems, and a team of physicians, who we represented in a merger with a leading clinical data workflow platform.

We have also helped pharmaceutical companies, along with vendors who help market drugs, to figure out which of the collected data they can use, how, and how HIPAA figures into the equation. We have worked on licensing technology issues for a fintech client, establishing who owns the data and the model and how to monetize it for other uses. A university has also benefitted from our services when they set up health care records utilizing blockchain technology and had questions about privacy and how students can benefit from the data.

Data itself and the ways in which companies can benefit from tapping into their data will only continue to grow. At Foley, we look forward to collaborating with you to help you accomplish your data intelligence goals.