5 Strategies For Implementing Data Analytics In Hospitals

Since the advent of the Internet, people have been able to access a significant amount of information with the click of a computer mouse. As technology becomes more ingrained in healthcare delivery, providers are facing the quandary of how to glean useful information from the enormous amount of data available through electronic health records, computerized provider order entry and other databases. Steve Nitenson, RN, BSN, MS, MBA, PhD, adjunct professor at Golden Gate University, San Francisco, and senior healthcare solutions architect for Perficient Healthcare, shares five strategies hospitals can use to implement healthcare data analytics.

Goals and challenges
"Healthcare analytics is the Holy Grail with respect to healthcare," Dr. Nitenson says. The conversion of loosely net patient data — data that is loosely associated with other data — into meaningful, actionable trends holds the promise of increased coordination of patient care, patient safety, quality of care and cost-efficiency for not only individual patients, but also for patient populations at large. Gathering and using meaningful information on patient populations is one of the major goals of accountable care organizations. "Part of the accountable care organization model requires the ability to analyze healthcare data," Dr. Nitenson says.