.JPG) Inderjith Davalur
Group CIO, Global
Hospitals Group
Inderjith Davalur is the Group CIO of Global Hospitals Group with hospitals in Hyderabad, Chennai...
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 performance, business performance and strategic and tactical initiatives is not new to healthcare. However, BI has brought forth a systematic, disciplined approach to how hospitals determine the data they need, how they collect it and organize it. I like to call BI “actionable data”. Obtaining a comprehensive view of the patients’ medical history and healthcare is only possible with a complete view of patient data. There has never been a dearth of volume of clinical data in a hospital. Typically, the data available in a hospital could be used to: • Increase clinical quality and service quality • Improve patient satisfaction • Increase revenues • Reduce costs • Support capital investment decisions • Support pay-for-performance programs • Improve access to healthcare services and facilities • Improve staffing • Improve marketing and customer information programs • Meet special market challenges • Increase the value of special initiatives such as lean six sigma • Lead the development of regional health information The areas where BI plays a vital role with significant impact can be looked at under the following areas. Operational Efficiency If you ask a clinician (Physician or Nurse) if he/she uses BI, the answer would most likely be “no”. However, in ways that they may not realize, BI tools are providing valuable information that helps them significantly improve the quality of patient care they provide. BI tools that aid in patient care administration in an ER could make a life giving difference in patient care. Something as basic as patient wait time monitoring and management could impact patient care. It could also make a difference in patient retention in an ER where a non-life threatening patient could simply leave to avoid unduly long wait. Preventative Medicine Besides adverse drug reactions (ADRs) hospital infections are one of the leading causes of deaths in hospitals. With advanced patient screening tools combined with aggressive treatment protocols, mortality rates caused by sepsis or ADRs can be dramatically reduced. The trick is to build the indicators and triggers into the BI tool that can function as a predictive intelligent clinical decision support mechanism that a nurse could use to manage the patient more effectively. For sepsis patients, minutes can mean the difference between life and death. This makes continuous monitoring essential - early detection and early treatment of sepsis likely prevents patients from needing Intensive Care [ICU] stays, shortens their length of stay in hospital and save lives. Clinical Services A hospital’s Pathology and Laboratory department collects and analyzes patient specimens essential in guiding patient treatment. This requires efficient data analysis, operational management processes and fast process turnaround times. Using business intelligence, reporting processes could be automated and turnaround times reduced by up to 50 percent. The impact on overall hospital productivity could be significant. In particular: • Increased confidence in data • Reduced Cycle • Increased Patient Throughput • Improved Communication • More Effective Employee Management The value of business intelligence is in using the same data across the organization for a variety of decisions on clinical performance, business performance and strategic as well as tactical initiatives. These are just a few of the many types of analytical applications needed to succeed in the specialty healthcare industry segment. As the industry continues to move toward insurance paid model, the competition will heat up and this capability will become not only the way to succeed, but also the way to survive. For hospitals in India, BI is especially valuable from a hospitals survival viewpoint. As the business model moves from 20% insurance and 80% cash pay to a more likely scenario of 80% insurance and 20% cash pay, hospitals would need to arm themselves with some solid analytical tools to stand out in the crowd. Insurance companies will require hard data analysis and BI tools will be the hospitals’ best friend in town. Those hospitals that embrace BI will do themselves and their patients the best favor. Experts on BI
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