Skip to main content

Proactive Strategies Necessary to Maximize Data Results

Analysis  |  By Jack O'Brien  
   October 19, 2018

Healthcare finance leaders must implement effective strategies for their respective systems to get the most out of their data analytics operations. 

Editor's note: This article is based on a roundtable discussion report sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The full report, How Big Data is Shaping Healthcare Finance, is available as a free download.

As data continues to grow into a larger and more influential aspect of the financial side of health systems across the country, healthcare executives are recognizing the challenges and opportunities ahead of them.

"There’s a constant challenge in healthcare, because like the banking industry, we are sitting on billions of transactions," says Neville Zar, senior vice president and chief revenue officer at Steward Healthcare in Boston. "But it’s very regulated in terms of what data you can share and how the data is shared. We have a duty bound by regulations and have earned our patients’ trust to protect that data. So you have to figure out how to analyze that data: Do you use third-party software or build it internally? In our organization, we use a mix of both. Some organizations have a prejudice to build, while other organizations tend to buy. We look for the best wherever it can be obtained."

In addition to the technology and digital tools used by providers to harness the massive amount of data they interface with every day, they should also be cognizant of who is responsible for ensuring efficient operations. The human aspect of big data and healthcare delivery routinely falls on employees who need to be capable and resourceful with their work.  

"We’re in the process of designing an analytics model to create an integrated center of excellence comprised of an ACO, health plan, and delivery," says Tanya Arthur, chief information officer at Summa Health in Akron, Ohio. "At the center of the model is the ability to leverage the right technology, a right data governance structure, and ensuring we have the right skills to rationalize data and mine insights across our complex healthcare ecosystem. In order to be successful, organizations must secure the right talent, including data architects, scientists, and analysts with deep clinical financial knowledge."

While employees are put into a position to effectively handle data analytics, Summa Health focuses another part of its efforts on governing employees and helping them excel in their closely-monitored metrics.

"There are two layers to the governance issue," says Jim Heffernan, senior vice president of finance and treasurer at Massachusetts General Physicians Organization in Boston. "One is that internal silos developed historically convey a feeling of ownership as people feel they [have] built their own database. The second layer is the privacy issues of protecting information from getting outside."

Given the heightened risk of patient information falling into the wrong hands, secure privacy measures are a crucial element to any data analytics operation that a health system pursues.

"When you have a diverse network that includes people that are not part of the integrated group, you have some issues," adds Heffernan. "What’s the real positive part of it? We do a lot of work around quality and safety. You can imagine the number of measures that we have in an organization our size. In the past, some of these metrics were measured by sampling techniques. As we get into the data science techniques that are available today, we can begin to test the quality and safety of the care we’re rendering for everybody."

View the complete HealthLeaders Roundtable report: How Big Data is Shaping Healthcare Finance

Jack O'Brien is the Content Team Lead and Finance Editor at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.


Get the latest on healthcare leadership in your inbox.