By David Hom, Chief Evangelist, SCIO Health Analytics
Twitter: @SCIOanalytics
Healthcare professionals are constantly looking to move the industry forward – in an effort to achieve improved clinical care, enhanced patient experiences and reduced costs. Without a specific plan, though, progress sometimes remains in idle. Here are four ways to jump-start your organization’s efforts:
#1: Include behavioral analytics as part of healthcare’s set of data tools
Political events such as Brexit and the U.S. Presidential election illustrate how many data analysts did not accurately predict eventual outcomes. Turns out that these data professionals might have been better served if they keyed in on anecdotal, attitudinal information gathered from social media, personal conversations and other means – instead of solely on formal big data. Similarly, to truly take care of someone’s health, providers need to focus on such behavioral data to predict how people will (or will not) address their personal health issues.
#2: Stop the opioid epidemic in its tracks
Opioid abuse in America has reached epidemic proportions according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Drug overdoses led to more than 47,000 deaths in 2014¹, the latest year for which data is available, placing it well ahead of cars and guns. No doubt it, it’s time to pull out all the stops – and finally put an end to fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) of opioids and other prescription medications.
#3: Use big data to get personal
The use of personas – representative models of a segment of a population – have proven their worth in a variety of industries. Now, it’s time for healthcare to leverage big data analytics for the development of patient personas and other tools that will help target care more precisely and could have a positive effect on healthcare.
#4: Ask for help, when needed.
Healthcare organizations need to get help from those in the know. This need for more and better use of analytics, especially among healthcare organizations taking on more risk, will accelerate the growth of insights-as-a-service, i.e., working with an outside business partner to transform data into actionable insights that result in measurable outcome improvements.
These are just a few of the practical steps that healthcare leaders can take to quickly move healthcare forward. How else can the healthcare industry move the needle in the right direction?
¹ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Press Release: Drug overdose deaths hit record numbers in 2014
This article was originally published on SCIO Health Analytics and is republished here with permission.