Analytics

Big data is bringing big changes to healthcare organizations of all shapes and sizes. Making the most of it will require providers to develop or hire new skill sets to compile a "cross-breed of expertise, wherein data scientists work in tandem with subject matter experts."

You want genomic analysis and big data to take off? Don't count on it until interoperability becomes more than just a plan tossed about in federal HIT policy meetings. It actually needs to come to fruition, said Cleveland Clinic's Chief Information Officer C. Martin Harris. Otherwise, healthcare innovation: Welcome to limbo.

Wes Wright, chief information officer at Seattle Children's Hospital, says a new analytics tool that unobtrusively monitors the performance of his HL7 transactions "gives me peace of mind."

The challenge for the Carolinas Healthcare System was to reduce the readmission rate for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The solution: predictive analytics.

A new survey from the American Health Information Management Association finds that 95 percent of the more than a thousand healthcare industry professionals queried believe that "high-value information" is essential for improving patient safety and care quality.

In this age of big data, analytics in healthcare has expanded from business intelligence and revenue-cycle management to clinical care.

The shift toward value-based care has sparked a demand for analytics like never before, according to a report from research firm KLAS. The report also points out that the demand has vendors rushing a wave of new products to market.

There are two types of analytics projects: those boundary-pushing advancements that, where they do exist, are mainly the product of big hospitals and academic medical centers, and the humbler, more doable -- but sometimes just as valuable -- insights that can be gleaned by smaller providers.