Is the past really the best predictor of the future?
Healthcare enterprise analytics: Manage where you want to be – not where you’ve been.
Several famous quotes advocate for the idea that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. But making decisions about the future solely based on past data will leave healthcare organizations incapable of adapting to today’s dynamic landscape. Increasing financial pressures, mergers and acquisitions, competitive threats, and new government quality initiatives are forcing healthcare leaders to think differently about how they operate and how they look at data.
The past alone simply can’t predict the future for healthcare.
The future belongs to those who believe in enterprise analytics.
To make an impact on operational performance in an increasingly competitive environment, healthcare organizations must commit to becoming data-driven. They need to look at and use data in new ways to achieve “analytics maturity.” According to Managing Partner Jef Williams at healthcare IT consulting firm Paragon Consulting Partners, LLC, “Becoming data-driven takes effort, commitment and a solid healthcare enterprise analytics solution. Disparate datasets must be linked, bringing RIS, PACS, VNA and billing data together. Gaining access to real-time data is imperative.”
| Four Stages of Analytics Maturity |
| 1. Gain access to meaningful data. |
| 2. Create visual representations of the data to evolve it from data to information. |
| 3. Use the information to answer questions, identify problems and recommend solutions. |
| 4. Adopt a data-driven mindset for strategic decision making across the entire organization. |
| Source: “Creating Actionable Data For Strategic Development & Patient Care Quality Improvement.” 2018. |
Measuring success one KPI at a time.
Once the right data is acquired, it must be converted into information, analyzed and presented – in ways that reveal opportunities for growth and performance improvement. But to improve performance, it must first be defined.
Based on goals, objectives and desired outcomes, custom key performance indicators (KPIs) can be designed to measure both patient-related and practice-related targets. Examples include:
- Care: wait times, exam duration, patient throughput, patient retention
- Clinicians: capacity, productivity, referrals, relationships
- Modalities: RVUs by specialty and site, volume by specialty and site
- Operations: margins, modality utilization, revenue
When data is analyzed against these KPIs, it becomes evidence to support strategic business decisions. Change can be implemented, and KPIs re-analyzed to gauge whether the desired results are being achieved over time. The cycle continues as KPIs are refined, and new results are measured. An enterprise analytics solution makes this process easy through user-friendly dashboards and tools.
Healthcare enterprise analytics maturity happens at a cultural and enterprise level.
Combining the right healthcare enterprise analytics solution and carefully defined KPIs enables analytics-based business decisions that can help healthcare organizations change course and impact the future. To read about how one healthcare leader did just that, see the whitepaper from Paragon Consulting Partners, Creating Actionable Data for Strategic Development & Patient Care Quality Improvement.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.*
Plato believed the measure of a man is what he does with power – but the power of a healthcare organization is what it does with measurement. Don’t rely solely on the past to determine the future. Create the future through healthcare enterprise analytics. Contact us today.
*Variations of this quote have been attributed to different authors, according to quoteinvestigator.com. O’Toole, Garson. 2012. “We Cannot Predict The Future, But We Can Invent It – Quote Investigator.” Quoteinvestigator.com.
Paragon Consulting Partners and Canon Medical collaborate in efforts to bring consumers high-quality, low-cost solutions and ultimately, better care for all patients.
