Healthcare analytics is a greatly significant and vital element in the healthcare are the knowledge of which vastly raises personal proficiency and the knowledge of the healthcare field entirely by providing the tools and for efficient practices. It should by mentioned that he given course equipped me with a vast range of tools which I can further apply in order to educate my stakeholders on the results I have received from the analytics. Some of the tools which I found the most profound and effective will be thereby depicted and discussed in the given essay.

   The importance of data analytics in healthcare has been vastly regarded. As Davenport pointed out in his both, the common characteristics of high performing companies include “the application of analytics to improve business and finance functions, and insights into how to operationalize analytics within organizations for optimal results” (Davenport, 2014). Thereby the appliance the right strategy of  data analytics is essential. In order to address the given objectives, I believe that such tool as assessment score would be greatly effective to be applied in a range of cases. As assessment scores present precise results and facts which are easy to operate with, they can also ensure well-designed structure that would enhance optimization of any data which need to be considered and presented to the stakeholders.

   One of the tools applied for healthcare analytics and data analysis itself which has been identified by Bates, Suchi and others in their research article was the algorithm – a tool which might be greatly successful while communicating certain strategy and depicting a specific case. As the authors claim, the algorithms can “best stratify data by risk of future costs while not addressing other issues” (Bates et. al, 2014). Besides that, the algorithms were claimed to be effective at reallocating the resources more effectively “at both the high-risk and low-risk ends of the spectrum” (Bates et.al., 2014).

References

Davenport, T. H. (Ed). (2014). Analytics in healthcare and the life sciences: Strategies,

   implementation, methods, and best practices. Upper Saddle River, NJ: International Institute for Analytics, Pearson Publisher. ISBN 13: 9780133407334

Bates, D. W., Saria, S., Ohno-Machado, L., Shah, A., & Escobar, G. (2014). Big data in   health care: Using analytics to identify and manage high-risk and high-cost patients. Health Affairs, 33, (7), 1123-1131. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/

MHA605 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Welcome to Week Six

Continuing with the experience of working with the data and provide useful and meaningful information, students will be able to identify the measures of success.  What is success?  Who determines what is success in healthcare?  There are a variety of measures in healthcare to determine success.  One of these is performance.  The Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.) has a that presents performance management and measurement in an easy-to-follow method.  The module also goes through quality improvement goals and provides ways for the healthcare organizations to evaluate the success of these goals and begins with the reminder that healthcare organizations have a common purpose to provide high quality care to patients (Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).  Success can be defined in a couple of ways (“Success | Definition of Success by Merriam-Webster,” 2015):

• Getting or achieving wealth, fame, or respect
• Achieving a desired result or goal.

Healthcare organizations hope to have pieces of both definitions:  wealth could be translated into profitability, fame translated to recognition of their successes, respect translated into becoming an organization that others look to for benchmarking and best practices, none of which could be possible without achieving the goals and results they have determined.  Benchmarking and best practices are similar to what we do in our personal lives.  For example, if a swimmer has a goal to become one of the fastest swimmers, he/she would do some research on some of the top swimmers from local, regional, national, or Olympian swimmers to simulate what these swimmers do from a training and performance standpoint (i.e., how often they practice, how long they practice, how they practice).  What these successful swimmers do takes dedication and continuous monitoring of their results.  Same applies to healthcare organizations on their continuous quality efforts.  While trying to achieve quality results, healthcare organizations (and swimmers) must look at the costs involved.  Healthcare organizations continue to be scrutinized about the cost of healthcare, particularly when looking at the overall value of the healthcare experience.

One of the measures used when deciding to purchase an analytics system, or other capital purchases, is the return on investment (ROI).  The return on investment is basically looking at how much money is being invested, and how much money is coming in as a result of the investment.  There are various resources available for help in determining how to calculate the ROI, some scholarly and some not scholarly.  For example, Khan Academy has extensive resources on a variety of accounting and finance-related tools, including ROI—watch the video on to see more details (Khan Academy, 2016).  Investopedia also has a very good explanation of ROI (remember that “pedias” are not considered scholarly, but can provide other resources to begin the research efforts) as follows (Investopedia, LLC, 2016):

• What:  determines the efficiency of investments
• How:  breaking down the ROI calculation
• When:  limitations of ROI

Oftentimes the value of an investment or process change must be identified and presented to all of the stakeholders in a healthcare organization before it can be approved, or denied.  With any type of information technology (IT), it can be challenging to determine ROI since the measurements are more operational and intangible.  Students are encouraged to continuing researching ROI and how this is determined for analytics.

References

Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.hrsa.gov/quality/toolbox/methodology/performancemanagement/index.html

Investopedia, LLC. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/returnoninvestment.asp

Khan Academy. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/investment-vehicles-tutorial/investment-consumption/v/return-on-capital

Success | Definition of Success by Merriam-Webster. (2015).. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/success