In an effort to reduce cost and increase quality of care, the healthcare industry is turning to data analytics. Some estimates are forecasting the global healthcare analytics market will reach 25 billion dollars by 2022. The trend is clear and if you do not have an analytics strategy in place you are at risk of falling behind those who are already starting to use data analytics to target patients with personalized interventions to improve outcomes and take control of the underlying cost drivers within the industry.
Where to Start?
Choosing what data to include in your analytics is a common challenge in healthcare, and it leads many IT teams to disappear into multi-year data collection and cleansing projects that produce no short-term value. To successfully turn data into analytics, begin with a meaningful business case in mind. Starting with a business case will provide a guiding light for selecting which data is relevant for the task at hand and will help you identify where you might be missing relevant data. This will also allow you to show other stakeholders the value you are bringing to the organization through your analytical efforts.
A Case for Quality
To gain actionable insights, you will need to have high-quality, clean data and access to the technology that will allow you to run highly sophisticated analytical algorithms. With the growing data analytics services and scalable capacity that cloud computing provides, the barrier to entry is low, but you will also need a capable data analytics team that understands the models and has the subject matter knowledge to effectively liaise with the business stakeholders toward a common business goal.
Don’t Forget to Transform
Once you have transformed the relevant data and gathered key insights from your analytic efforts, your task is to use them to transform the people, processes, and decision making frameworks of your organization. This is crucial. Without taking action on these insights, you are wasting a great opportunity to better equip your organization for the changing healthcare industry.
Focus first on a business case. Build a strong analytical team. Use the insights to transform your organization. Following these three guidelines will set you up to win big with healthcare data analytics. Let us know how we can help you on your data analytics journey.
