One of the major trends sweeping healthcare is the explosion in data. Hospitals and health systems increasingly rely on digital data to inform both operational and clinical decisions. However, the volume of data captured can overwhelm leaders, leaving them unsure of how best to use data to improve financial results, supply chain performance and patient outcomes.
Becker’s Hospital Review recently spoke with Kaci Dominguez, director of analytics at McKesson RxO®, which offers pharmacy optimization services, about the ways hospitals and health systems can derive value from their data. Ms. Dominguez believes these organizations have only scratched the surface in the use of data to improve outcomes and produce better financial results. She sees multiple opportunities to more effectively use data to:
- Improve patient outcomes. This is the main goal of the healthcare system. Data, for example, could show which antibiotics were most effective for a particular indication and which drugs, devices or supplies would lead to the best procedure-specific outcomes for patients.
- Optimize revenue. One way to improve financial results is to ensure appropriate reimbursement by aggregating billing and reimbursement data and using algorithms to review whether drugs and related services were billed correctly. When errors are found, claims can be fixed, which increases the likelihood of appropriate reimbursement.
- Decrease costs. All hospitals and health systems are focused on controlling costs, particularly drug costs. Analyzing data on drugs can help determine the most appropriate and cost-effective drug for each situation. An example is identifying if the lowest cost drug is being purchased based on contracts and other variables. A more complex example is when two comparable drugs are available for the same indications, data can identify which of these comparable drugs is more cost effective, producing comparable outcomes at a lower cost.
Often, hospitals and health systems leaders believe there is great potential to use data to improve operational and financial performance but aren’t sure how to get started. Ms. Dominguez offered the following three suggestions for generating data-driven insights and putting them to use:
- Form a team with the appropriate stakeholders. This team should include end users, such as physicians and Chief Medical Officer, and a representative from the pharmacy department, like the pharmacy director, and a member of the finance group, possibly the CFO. In addition, this team should have technical experts, including a data architect who knows where the data lives and can pull it together, as well as a person with analytics skills. Collectively, this team should possess the expertise necessary to glean clinical and financial insights from the data to better inform care and operational decisions.
- Start with something specific. Don’t try to boil the ocean and don’t try to do everything at once. Start with a specific question, which if answered can provide significant value to the organization. An example can be analyzing areas of high expense, which if addressed could have a meaningful impact.
- Look for variances. One of best and easiest ways to use data is to identify significant variances or differences in the data. Variances indicate opportunities for standardization efforts, which may produce significant, immediate results.
Common challenges experienced by healthcare organizations as they embark on a data analytics journey include not having enough time, not knowing where to start and not having adequate technical expertise, according to Ms. Dominguez.
Ways she has seen organizations overcome these barriers and create positive momentum for data analytics involve starting with a focused project with a narrow scope that can show a significant return in terms of the time invested and the value created for the organization. Ms. Dominguez has also seen hospitals and health systems accelerate their data analytics journey by developing partnerships with external analytics experts — including her team at McKesson — to provide necessary technical and analytics expertise.
Conclusion
Hospitals and health systems are all looking for ways to improve patient outcomes, ensure appropriate reimbursement and decrease costs. Data can help teams identify opportunities to improve operational and financial performance.
However, due to the overwhelming amount of data in healthcare today, it can be hard to make effective use of data to achieve meaningful results. According to Ms. Dominguez, keys to success include forming the right multi-stakeholder team, focusing narrowly on answering specific questions and looking for variances within the data, which can be low-hanging fruit.
By pursuing this approach, organizations can improve patient outcomes, enhance reimbursement and find significant opportunities to decrease costs. There is tremendous value in a hospital or health system’s data. The key is knowing how to leverage this data for the greatest impact.