Analytics: Impacting quality, outcomes and patient engagement

During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a great deal of focus on financial data in the healthcare arena. But in the last decade, the healthcare industry has spent less time focusing on financial data and more time collecting, integrating and understanding clinical data, according to SAS Chief Healthcare Strategist Cindy Berry.

Berry, a featured presenter at the 2009 HP Health and Life Sciences Symposium in Phoenix, began her address by explaining that decision support systems had once been focused on linking payroll, expense and cost accounting data. “But clinicians were not getting the data they needed,” she said. “Now we are seeing a real focus toward quality and clinical excellence.”

HP, the world’s largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure.

The Symposium is HP’s premiere annual healthcare and life sciences (HLS) customer meeting, bringing together more than 300 industry leaders from across the globe to exchange ideas and IT best practices. Under the theme of “Excellence in Quality,” various industry leaders discussed innovative ways to work together with technology to drive improved business and health outcomes. Berry, representing SAS, was on hand to help attendees learn how analytics can help healthcare leaders make faster decisions and improve performance.

Clinical quality and financial impact
The flood of demands on healthcare toward transparency, measuring, reporting and public access to data have all accelerated over the past five years. Berry pointed to the preponderance of health graders who now rate, rank and publish data on hospitals and providers. “There are real cost impacts for poor quality, including longer length of stay, decreased pay-for-performance, lower reimbursement, and obviously, increased risk to patients,” Berry emphasized. “All of this puts more pressure on providers to have more access to clinical information and measurement.”

Since the Institute of Medicine’s report, To Err is Human, published in 2000, the use of ratings information is growing, Berry explained. Surveys indicate that people are becoming more likely to choose a provider based on ratings. “Many providers are losing money, and these financial pressures make it very difficult for them to make investments to keep up with technology. The times require collaborative and analytical insight. We need to integrate the data, but also make sure the data is accurate and clean,” she said.

Data-driven performance
Berry shared some key trends around today’s exponential expansion of digital information. “In 2005, digital information was doubling every 1100 days. Now it is expanding every 11 months,” she pointed out. “By 2010, it will be doubling every 11 hours. Healthcare must have data integration. Whether it be through a data warehouse or from an application that pulls from different sources, the data needs to help drive performance.”

Clear and easy-to-use reporting and analytics are key to helping organizations make good decisions. Berry reminded the audience that it is critical to rely on effective business solutions, with all underpinnings of performance management. “Until you have these solutions and processes in place, it is difficult to drive improvements in performance and quality at the pace required,” she noted.

In order to add focus to critical thinking and decision making, Berry suggests that the first step is to establish and triage priorities, which need to be usable and measurable. She also recommends strong collaboration among all stakeholders in all phases, and automating as much as possible. “Getting the right information to the right user is critical to provide safe and high-quality care to patients. The use of automated, actionable communication portals for leaders and physicians so they can drive performance improvement, such as dashboards, is crucial,” she suggests. “It is important that the data can be drilled down, not only in comparison against goals, but against the performance of benchmark and other peers as well.”

Enabling performance improvement
There are many examples of healthcare successes that have been tracked and optimized with business intelligence and analytics in the areas of clinical safety and quality, and operations improvement. These successes often lead to positive effects on financial indicators as well. Areas of improvement have included decreasing patient falls, higher compliance of CMS core measure performance, reductions in infections, efficiencies in patient throughput and access, increases in patient satisfaction, and earlier adoption of evidence-based practice. “When you have the information, critical issues can be measured, acted upon and monitored, ensuring follow-through with the results,” Berry says.

SAS has had a strong focus in the healthcare industry for many years. “SAS tools are being used to help understand regional practice and procedure pattern variances, isolate regional infections, develop proactive prevention plans, and improve regional care disparities,” Berry emphasized. “We have seen some great things done globally over the years. As we all continue to focus on quality and leverage the immense assets of data, information technology and talent, we can improve collaboration and make significant improvements for the present and future of healthcare.” 

View Presentations
To view more presentations delivered at the 2009 HP Health and Life Sciences Symposium, please visit: www.hp.com/go/hphealthsymposium 

Cindy Berry, Chief Healthcare Strategist, SAS