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What Benefits does Business Intelligence Bring to Healthcare?

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The healthcare business intelligence (BI) market share is expected to grow at an accelerating CAGR of 16.36% from 2021 to 2026, with an estimated increase to USD 8.15 billion.

Healthcare BI involves gathering health-related information from various sources, such as electronic health records, laboratory findings, eHealth and mHealth apps, smart wearables, government agencies, as well as financial and customer relationship management systems. As experts from Belitsoft explain, the collected data is subsequently stored, analyzed, and reported upon for valuable insights.

Healthcare BI tools also integrate third-party medical research and pharmaceutical data to complement internal data. This enables the combination of internal data with industry and market trends for better insights.

Healthcare providers can use these insights to improve patient satisfaction and financial performance. Healthcare BI tools can be implemented across medical centers, clinics, hospitals, insurance vendors, research facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and data technology firms. You can create engaging presentations for regarding the health care industry using these ready to use medical powerpoint templates.

Advantages of Healthcare Business Intelligence

Unified and Secure Health Information

Healthcare BI tools enable centralized access to clinical, administrative, and financial data, even if it’s scattered across various systems, thus creating a “single version of the truth.” To safeguard patient data, access is limited to authorized personnel to comply with government regulations like HIPAA.

BI systems promote a comprehensive view of the healthcare organization, revealing anomalies such as fraud or embezzlement. They also reduce redundant work.

Enhanced Decision-Making Capabilities

Business Intelligence technology enables quick critical patient care responses, particularly during emergency situations. It accelerates decision-making by providing real-time access to aggregated patient data through BI reports and dashboards embedded within hospital apps and portals, allowing on-the-go access.

Business Intelligence software connects with various data sources and aggregates the information into a single, centralized repository known as a data warehouse. The organization can use this information to make thoughtful decisions and enhance overall performance.

Healthcare business intelligence tools assist in understanding the past and present by addressing crucial questions. For example, “What happened?” “Why did it happen?” “What outcomes should we anticipate?” and “What actions should we take?” Also, when configured accurately, Healthcare Business Intelligence can utilize calculations by data scientists to predict the future.

In comparison with conventional management strategies that rely on personal opinions, healthcare business intelligence offers a data-driven approach to decision-making. It strengthens the relationship between individuals, information, and departments within the healthcare sector. BI software eliminates the need for disconnected spreadsheets and manual management, as there is no longer a need for exploratory analysis.

Cut Healthcare Costs

Business intelligence is capable of producing actionable insights from vast and intricate data sets, including billing, medical records of patients, and financial reports. And it takes hours rather than days.

Business intelligence (BI) is derived from research on clinical activities, supplies, logistics, costs, and outcomes, and aids in transforming data into prompt resolutions. BI connects and integrates terabytes of information across providers, life sciences organizations, and insurers, enabling the establishment of cost savings, trends, and best practices for effective treatments.

By providing prompt situational insights, unforeseen challenges can be addressed and resources can be utilized more efficiently. Leveraging the inherent capabilities of AI, it becomes feasible to anticipate and prepare for future requirements.

Prevent expensive hospital readmissions

BI software can help avoid costly readmissions by identifying patients with a particular condition who are readmitted within a specific timeframe, such as 30 days of discharge. It determines the factors contributing to these readmissions, such as medication non-adherence, and recommends steps to address them. These steps may include providing patients with better education and support to ensure they take their medication correctly or improving follow-up care after discharge.

Prevent complications in patients with chronic conditions

BI systems can identify patients with a particular condition who are at risk of developing complications. Early detection allows for more targeted interventions, preventing high expenses associated with that.  These interventions may involve medication management, such as reminders for drug refills or pill organizers, to help patients adhere to their treatment regimen. Alternatively, remote monitoring programs, which incorporate wearable devices to track blood glucose or blood pressure levels, can be established to send alerts to healthcare providers if the levels are outside of the target range.

Challenges and Constraints in Implementing Healthcare Business Intelligence

Human-related errors

The healthcare industry often relies on manual processes for data entry, management, interpretation, and sharing, which can increase the likelihood of errors. In the absence of a well-established accountability system, these errors can accumulate and result in further complications.

Tons of various data

The collection of healthcare data is intricate and diverse, arising from numerous sources and exhibiting a variety of forms. That encompasses patient profiles, healthcare provider information, data from pharmaceutical companies, disease registries, results from diagnostic tests, treatment alternatives, as well as different kinds of visual data like scans, images, and graphs.

Data management

As new admissions, diagnoses, treatments, and medical records are added upon discharge, the databases mentioned above continue to expand. The heterogeneous nature of these data sources poses significant difficulties in consolidating and merging the data, building a data warehouse, and uploading the data into a rules-based engine to generate actionable insights and reports.

Access to accurate data is critical for the reliability of Health Business Intelligence. Therefore, configuring a robust data management system is essential before implementing a BI solution.

How to choose the best fit?

Having an experienced healthcare BI analyst is crucial, particularly during the initial configuration of healthcare BI software and self-service tools. This analyst is responsible for customizing the data models and dashboards to align with the specific requirements of a healthcare organization.

Business Intelligence analysts, with their combined expertise in data analysis and healthcare, play a vital role in helping healthcare organizations enhance patient outcomes, optimize operational efficiency, and minimize costs. They assist with clinical decision-making, identify areas for quality improvement, and track critical performance indicators to inform strategic decision-making. The absence of healthcare BI analysts would leave these institutions ill-equipped to leverage the potential of their data.

When selecting healthcare BI software, take into account various features, such as security, cloud compatibility, data connectivity, data preparation, automated insights, data storytelling, natural language search, data visualization, and reporting. You may also want to explore popular healthcare BI software options, such as Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, and SAP, among others, and review their respective dashboards.