Healthcare business intelligence involves analyzing business performance metrics, marketing metrics, financial performance, and production efficiency to improve operations. It also targets areas for cost reduction without sacrificing patient care, such as food service operations and equipment layout. Customer satisfaction is improved while costs are reduced.
Business intelligence for healthcare services consists of data related to the activities of a healthcare professional’s business. This data includes business performance metrics typical of other business operations. Marketing metrics, financial performance and production efficiency of a healthcare company can be analyzed. This is done to improve the company’s operations. What sets healthcare business intelligence apart is the effort to understand the ways in which clinical quality and profitability are related.
Commercial healthcare data collection often involves deciding what data is needed; how the data will be collected, stored and accessed; and what the desired result should be from using the data. Taking the intelligence and insights gained from data, managers can try to apply them to the low-hanging fruit first. This includes the operational aspects that are considered the most wasteful and the easiest to change.
Not only does this targeted approach yield a reasonably quick and rewarding return on investment (ROI), it also allows time for a lean mindset to permeate day-to-day healthcare operations. Additionally, intelligence gathered from patient satisfaction surveys can be used in an effort to target the areas most likely to negatively impact customer sentiment. For example, a relatively small change in staff behavior, such as an intentional friendly greeting offered to patients, can have a strong impact on repeat business for elective surgery.
One of the common motivations for gathering and quantifying healthcare business intelligence is to find ways to control costs without sacrificing quality in patient care. Cultural and legal sanctions restrict health care providers from other common cost-cutting strategies, such as massive staff reductions. Replacing expensive life support machines with much less effective, albeit less expensive, machines would likely be considered completely unacceptable by patients and staff alike. Cost containment measures can include using collected data to make strategic decisions on reducing waste without measurably affecting essential patient care.
For example, food service operations in a hospital may include an employee’s cafeteria as well as food served to patients who have special dietary requirements. By using healthcare business intelligence to measure the leanness of food production in a hospital, food costs can be significantly reduced. Some hospitals have instituted waste control measures, such as measuring discarded food and reducing the amount of food purchased based on these calculations. In this way, certain areas can be targeted for reduced spending without negatively impacting patient care.
Reformatting equipment layout and staff placement can reduce unnecessary steps in a healthcare operation. In a large healthcare organization, reducing collective action taken on task performance can lead to better quality healthcare without increasing staffing expenses. Customer satisfaction is improved while costs are reduced as a result of business intelligence in healthcare.
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