Business performance metrics are among the data monitored by healthcare business intelligence systems.
Healthcare business intelligence consists of data related to the business activities of a healthcare provider. This data includes business performance metrics typical of other business operations. Marketing metrics, financial performance, and production efficiencies of a healthcare company can be analyzed. This is done to improve the operations of the company. What distinguishes healthcare business intelligence is the effort to understand the ways in which clinical quality and profitability are related.
Healthcare business intelligence can be used to target audiences for elective advertising procedures, such as LASIK vision correction.
Collecting commercial healthcare data often involves deciding what data is needed; how the data will be collected, stored and accessed; and what should be the ideally desired result when using the data. Taking the intelligence and insights gained from the data, managers can try to apply it to what is most within their reach first. This includes the operational aspects that are perceived as the most wasteful and easy to change.
This focused approach not only generates a rewarding and reasonably fast return on investment (ROI), but also allows time for a lean mindset to permeate day-to-day healthcare operations. Additionally, intelligence gained from patient satisfaction surveys can be used in an effort to target areas most likely to negatively affect customer sentiment. For example, a relatively small change in staff behavior, such as an intentional friendly greeting to patients, can have a strong impact on repeat business for elective surgery.
One of the common motivations for collecting 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 extensive downsizing. Patients and staff are likely to find it completely unacceptable to replace expensive life-support machinery with machinery that is much less effective, but cheaper. However, cost containment measures may include using collected data to make strategic decisions to reduce waste without measurably impacting essential patient care.
For example, food service operations in a hospital may include an employee cafeteria as well as food served to patients who must meet special dietary needs. By using healthcare business intelligence to measure food production shortages in a hospital, food costs can be significantly reduced. Some hospitals have instituted waste control measures, such as measuring food discarded and then reducing the amount of food purchased based on these calculations. In this way, expenses can be reduced in certain areas without negatively affecting patient care.
Reformatting equipment layout and staff placement can reduce unnecessary steps in a healthcare operation. In a large healthcare organization, reducing the collective steps taken in performing your duties can lead to better quality healthcare without increasing staff costs. Customer satisfaction is improved and costs are reduced as a result of healthcare business intelligence.