The Pivotal Role of Data Analytics in Healthcare Operations

With each passing year, the importance of data has been becoming more intricately tied to the progress of healthcare. This is, in turn, continuously has increased the need for healthcare leaders to make decisions in real-time and predict what resources they will require for upcoming demand. But thanks to data analytics, healthcare professionals now find their jobs becoming more streamlined and efficient while patients enjoy the benefits of improved outcomes. On that note, advanced data analytics applications in healthcare can be organized into three main categories, including improved patient care, reduced burnout of healthcare professionals, and efficient IT infrastructure. Let us dive deeper. 

Improving Quality of Care 

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare organizations were realizing the importance of real-time readable data and infrastructure. One good example is electronic health records (EHR) helping this move from volume-based care to value-based care, the implementation of advanced data analytics is also providing new methods for healthcare providers to analyze patients’ health conditions quickly at the point of delivery. In addition, data analytics is enabling streamlining patient details by providing data in real-time.

However, it is challenging to have capabilities along with a wide range of resources under one’s belt in today’s advanced technological world. Healthcare providers, thus, always rely on a multitude of medical and treatment solutions. Subsequently, the use of different processes requires healthcare providers to adopt current procedural terminology (CPT) codes and bring standardized identification of different healthcare operations like diagnoses, medications, procedures, and other facets of patient care. Otherwise, analyzing patient data can be a daunting task for healthcare providers since there is no standardized nomenclature followed across different systems. And in the longer run, it would become hard to improve healthcare operations and deliver efficient clinical care. 

Reducing Burnout for Healthcare Professionals

There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has been accelerating the practice of telemedicine in the healthcare sector. The most significant push amid this health crisis came from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth services’ coverage was limited to beneficiaries living only in rural areas. But during the pandemic, CMS started expanding reimbursement for telehealth for beneficiaries living in urban settings as well. Now, while this move has doubled telemedicine services since the beginning of the crisis, it has also increased the workload of healthcare providers. In this landscape, the use of advanced data analytics has made it possible for healthcare professionals to streamline their work, deliver efficient patient care, and at the same time, reduce their stress. 

Enhancing Overall IT and Administrative Infrastructure

The healthcare industry is setting a new benchmark today for adopting innovation in its multiple domains. With data analytics driving innovations, healthcare organizations are now improving their administrative infrastructure, including examining historical patient admission rates, cutting down healthcare costs, and proactively providing better care. Additionally, data analytics is helping hospital staff analyze their productivity and overall efficiency, which can empower hospitals in improving their financial and administrative performance. It is, therefore, important that hospitals build out a full stack of advanced data analytics applications that can enable healthcare providers to make data-driven decisions in real-time. 

Advice to Healthcare Leaders 

Although data analytics brings a lot to the table, the onus is on healthcare providers to reap the complete benefit of this innovative technology. It is necessary to think about technology as a combination of processes, policies, and operations, and people instead of looking at it as an isolated aspect. And if we can put technology in the context of patient-centric or value-based care, only then can we maximize the benefit of technology for the greater good. Otherwise, our processes and policies and our eagerness to adopt technology can limit us from considering even the best of breed technology as a viable solution. 

At the same time, we also have to make sure that we always continue to improve our technology stack and stay on par with the recent innovations. This is because we still lack in terms of digitalization and fail to create a better patient experience in many areas of the care delivery model. After all, we live in an era of Google and Amazon where superior customer experience predicts the success or failure of a business.  The onus is therefore on us to bring the same level of experience for the patient community.