Analytics development is not a “random coordinated thing.” Rather, executives need a plan for their organization and the areas they want to bolster with analytics, said James E. Gaston, senior director, maturity model development, at HIMSS Analytics.
“By having a strategy, it allows you to engage key stakeholders in the development of the roadmap and aligning projects with your organization’s goals,” Gaston said. Subsequently, “everyone is speaking the same language in a well-rounded way.”
Gaston is moderating a session entitled “Perspectives: Proving Value and Driving Results” at the HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Big Data and Healthcare Analytics Forum June 14-15 in San Francisco.
To successfully integrate analytics, Gaston suggested a three-step approach: perform a needs assessment; define the values needed to achieve goals from analytics; and understand the tools on the market.
While most healthcare organizations begin their analytics journey by determining the tools available, Gaston explained that this step should “really be on the back-end.”
“Everyone is overwhelmed with all of the offerings on the market, it’s easy to get bright-shiny-object syndrome,” Gaston said. “By stepping back and determining what you want to achieve and then looking at the tools, you can make better decisions.”
Other industries better leverage analytics to be more responsive to their market and have embraced the idea of using information to empower decision making. Gaston said this is one area healthcare has struggled with: traditional decision making versus data-based decisions.
Healthcare needs to find the balance between credibility and experience-based intuition along with the facts data outlines for these situations, Gaston said. According to Gaston, key to finding this middle ground is overcoming fear and using inertia.
“People are intimidated by change,” Gaston said. “They can be frustrated by change, and a lot of times, they can be afraid of change.”
Gaston has seen firsthand the fear of organizations switching from basing decisions on their institutional experience to decisions based on data. “It can be intimidating for a lot of people,” he said.
Comparing analytics to a ship, he stressed that “you can’t just kick or push the boat to get it where you want it to go.”
“At first it may not seem like it’s moving, but after a while it will pick up momentum until it’s going where you want,” he said. And providers are beginning to become more comfortable with this shift, he added.
“The technology is getting better,” said Devin Mason, manager of global marketing at HIMSS Analytics. “That’s been the case through EMRAM and other maturity models; it’s all going toward the end goal of improving healthcare.”
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
