How to Utilize Business Analytics in the Healthcare Industry
Over the past several decades, the healthcare industry has evolved in a number of keyways. One particular innovation that is beginning to be taken advantage of in the field is business analytics. Given business analytics’ wide range of uses, organizations are beginning to improve their processes in a number of striking ways.
Understanding the most effective ways to use business analytics can make it easier for healthcare administrators and healthcare professionals to integrate the practice into various processes.
Here is how to utilize business analytics in the healthcare industry.
What Is Business Analytics?
Before integrating business analytics into healthcare processes, it’s important to have a firm grasp of what the practice is and how it works. In essence, business analytics is the practice of utilizing data to inform business decisions. This involves collecting data, analyzing it, gleaning insights from analysis, and using those insights to make business decisions and improve a business.
These are some of the most significant parts of what an analyst does. There are a number of ways in which insights from data can be utilized to improve businesses, making business analytics a practice with seemingly endless possibilities — especially in the realm of healthcare.
Ways to Use Business Analytics in Healthcare
For those interested in integrating the practice of business analytics into their healthcare operations, it can help to have some guidance. Being aware of some key ways that business analysts can make improvements in the space can make it easier for one to navigate the process.
Here are some significant ways to use business analytics in healthcare.
Gaining and Analyzing Genetic Data from Patients
Today, one of the most exciting developments in healthcare is the utilization of genetic information to help patients prevent certain ailments and stay healthy. With the help of business analytics processes, healthcare organizations can easily contribute to a database of genetic information and help keep a greater number of individuals healthy.
Healthcare organizations are able to do this by analyzing which people are most affected by certain diseases and ailments. After determining this information by collecting and analyzing data, business analytics software can help medical professionals determine which ailments people are most at risk of developing based on their genetic makeup. As such, healthcare organizations can utilize business analytics to gain a deeper understanding of genetics and improve the health outcomes of their patients.
Accurately Predicting Hospital Flow and Need for Resources
For hospitals and hospital administrative staff, one of the most significant challenges is accurately predicting the flow of patients through an institution. If administrators overstaff, their hospital will be overspending valuable capital. Conversely, if administrators understaff, patients may receive suboptimal care and, as a result, suboptimal health outcomes.
Business analytics offers healthcare institutions the ability to predict hospital flow with greater accuracy and plan accordingly. This means that hospitals can both save money by not overstaffing and also improve patient experience by planning accordingly for times with heavy hospital flow.
Improving Scheduling and Patient Satisfaction
Anyone who has waited a prolonged amount of time for a medical visit understands that it can negatively impact one’s experience of receiving care. While healthcare administrators do their best to schedule effectively, it is an extremely difficult task given the unique nature of each individual case. Business analytics has the power to provide better scheduling that decreases the amount of time that patients have to wait while also making schedules more organized for medical professionals.
Business analytics does this by utilizing data about patient appointment times for various ailments and concerns. By analyzing this data, business analytics software can determine estimates of how long appointments will take, making it easier for administrators to schedule appointments effectively and ways that decrease the amounts of time that patients have to wait to see someone.
Enhanced Ability to Monitor Patient Health
Today, an explosion in technological innovation has made it possible for healthcare organizations to better monitor the health of patients. This is due to many patients having devices such as Apple Watches which track and record data. Business analytics allows healthcare organizations to utilize this data to keep track of patients’ health and intervene when they believe there is cause for concern.
Whereas healthcare organizations used to typically have to wait for patients to reach out with concerns, they now have the ability to notify patients when data shows that something is wrong. This ability to improve patient health outcomes through monitoring data is one of the many ways that business analytics is equipping healthcare organizations with the power to be more effective.
Decreasing Health Insurance Fraud and Improving Efficiency
Health insurance organizations have an incredibly large number of claims that they must address every single day. In addition, there is a striking number of fraudulent claims that individuals attempt to make, making it even more difficult for health insurance companies to efficiently address claims. Business analytics has the power to increase the efficiency of these processes for health insurance companies while also detecting fraudulent claims with greater accuracy.
Business analytics software utilizes data from previous fraudulent claims to detect similarities. These similarities can be flagged and employees are able to take a deeper look and make their assessment. In addition, these types of software can asses which claims have a greater likelihood of being truthful. As such, health insurance companies can benefit substantially from business analytics by making their processes more efficient and accurate.
Business Analytics Is Transforming Healthcare
The healthcare industry has evolved in many profound ways over the last several decades. Today, the integration of business analytics practices is proving to be a welcome innovation that is improving processes across the healthcare industry. While not all healthcare organizations have integrated business analytics processes into their operations, more and more are taking advantage of the practice each passing day.
In a few short years, there’s a great possibility that business analytics will become a normalized part of operations across the healthcare industry.
