- Dec 18, 2023
The Healthcare industry is witnessing a surge in data due to digitization and technological advancements. In addition to operational and financial data, massive amounts of information are generated through telehealth, remote monitoring, wearables, and EHRs in the healthcare sector. Availability of such humongous data has made it imperative and easier to adopt strategies for deducing actionable insights. By leveraging on techniques like business analytics, data mining, and data visualization, business Intelligence facilitates data-driven decision making in healthcare.
Business intelligence is the technical infrastructure that collects, stores, and analyses data. In simpler terms, business intelligence is the tool that bestows the healthcare sector and its businesses the ability to ask relevant questions and get straightforward answers quickly. So, healthcare business intelligence keeps the guesswork out and allows enterprises to make strategic decisions vital for good results.
According to insights from DataProt, 26% of businesses worldwide have embraced business intelligence and are able to make decisions five times faster. Owing to the immense potential it holds, about 88% of healthcare organizations have chosen business intelligence to achieve excellence.
Healthcare Business Intelligence- Top 10 Use Cases
Business intelligence offers numerous benefits in terms of clinical, operational and financial aspects for the healthcare segment. Here is an overview of some of the significant use cases to infer the role of business intelligence in the healthcare Industry.
1. Improved Decision Making
- Healthcare BI enables decision-makers access information easily by integrating data from various sources into a centralized repository called the data warehouse
- It presents analysis results in formats like Dashboards, making the process of tracking key performance metrics like patient outcomes, financial performance, etc., easier.
- This aids decision-makers to identify trends and derive actionable insights for arriving at conclusions.
2. Providing Quality Care
- BI enables hospitals, insurance providers to access the complete health information about users. By analyzing historic and current data from various sources healthcare providers can decide the best course of action.
- By centralizing user data, BI enables effective department collaboration and accelerates plan implementation.
- Predictive analysis by BI tools helps identify potential health risks to users based on their medical history, thus enabling adoption of preventive measures.
- In case of emergencies, BI facilitates quick data retrieval and timely action.
- BI tools enable personalization of treatment plans based on user’s health history, creating a good scope for user satisfaction.
3. Operational Efficiency
- BI tools perform analytics on operational data to optimize processes like resource allocation, inventory management and patient logistics.
- Tracking key operational performance indicators allows to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, areas for improvement in healthcare operations.
- BI provides healthcare professionals real-time data to proactively manage operations, thereby reducing administrative burden.
- Business intelligence improves operational efficiency effectively reducing the cost.
4. Fraud Detection
- BI can help detect and prevent frauds related to insurance claims and healthcare abuse.
- By analyzing historic and current user’s data, BI can uncover prescription of unnecessary treatments or tests.
- BI can detect billing inconsistencies, including phantom billing, upcoding, and unbundling by analyzing diagnostic and proposed treatment against the billing.
- Insurance companies can leverage BI to uncover fraudulent claims by healthcare organizations of bad repute by analyzing claims against predetermined dimensions such as drug prices. This attribute of business intelligence comes as a huge respite to the healthcare sector as losses due to fraud exceeds $300 billion.
5. Addressing Health Disparities
- Healthcare BI tools enable organizations to address health disparities prevalent in the society
- BI tools integrate data from various sources like population surveys, demographic information to identify medically underserved population.
- By analyzing this data, any disparities in user’s health, lack of healthcare access to the population can be determined and mitigation strategies can be put in place.
- Based on BI reports, health organizations can plan targeted interventions like medical camps, health screenings, health care discounts, etc.
- BI also provides tools for real-time monitoring of disparities and impact of interventions on them in the form of dashboards and reports.
6. Staffing Optimization
Managing and retaining a talented workforce accounts to 60% of the hospital costs. Healthcare Business Intelligence helps to optimize healthcare work force to achieve operational efficiency, better outcomes and cost benefits.
- BI tools can analyze user and staff data and help in the scheduling and distribution of resources in departments with high demand.
- BI performance based dashboards for staff provide valuable insights and assists in the retention of talented workforce, workload distribution highly essential to prevent burnouts from overwork.
- BI based predictive analysis allows staff optimization by predicting times when the influx of patients will be high facilitating operational ease and quality care for users.
7. Medical Device Management
- According to Deloitte, predictive maintenance of machines can increase productivity by 25%. Hence, utilization of BI tools to maintain an inventory of all medical devices in a facility can work wonders for the healthcare industry
- BI can track utilization statistics for devices enabling optimal usage.
- BI based performance dashboards can give insights on device reliability and help schedule maintenance.
- Predictive analytics based maintenance history helps to predict device malfunction and prevents machine failures.
8. Supply Chain Management
- By analyzing inventory data, BI tools can help schedule purchase of medical supplies and drugs.
- By tracking utilization rates, BI can help reduce costs by avoiding overstocking of supplies,
- Predictive analysis can prevent shortage of supplies by forecasting surge in demand and possible supply chain disruptions.
9. Quality Reporting and Improvements
- Healthcare Business Intelligence empowers decision makers to identify key performance indicators like patient satisfaction, safety, etc.
- By tracking these KPIs’ on BI dashboards, decision makers can take steps to improve underperforming indicators to enhance patient outcomes.
- Results of user data analysis are also reported in formats like graphs, charts etc., making them simple to comprehend and to make timely decisions.
- BI tools also ensure that healthcare systems adhere to regulatory bodies like HIPAA by centralizing the storage of user data and restricting unauthorized access.
10. Facility Management
Healthcare Business Intelligence can streamline various aspects of facility management.
- BI analyzes security and surveillance data in the healthcare facilities to improve safety aspects.
- It ensure that the security in the facility complies with safety standards.
- BI helps in scheduling maintenance activities with respect to sanitation and hygiene of the facility.
Summing Up
Business intelligence is helping maximize the potential of data in the healthcare industry. From uncovering trends in healthcare data to visualizing data analyzed in comprehendible formats, BI is providing healthcare stake holders valuable insights to improve user satisfaction, business outcomes and revenue. With the health care Business intelligence market expected to exceed $21.4 billion in 2030, it can be affirmed that health care business intelligence is here to stay.
