According to a new survey fielded by Definitive Healthcare and sponsored by Dimensional Insight, 90% of hospitals and health systems use the analytics component of their electronic health records (EHRs), with 49% using it exclusively or primarily for analytics. With such widespread use, the technology must be meeting the needs of hospitals and health systems, right?
(Wrong.)
The survey data shows that despite the fact that many hospitals are using EHR analytics, they are also challenged by the technology and give it middling rates when it comes to satisfaction. Let’s look at the survey results in more detail and examine where hospitals and health systems go from here.
Hospitals not highly satisfied with EHR analytics
The survey interviewed 108 healthcare leaders on their experience with EHR analytics. It also asked about their experience with analytics-specific platforms and in-house solutions to serve as a comparison point.
Overall, leaders ranked their satisfaction with EHR analytics as a 5.58 (on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being “extremely dissatisfied” and 10 being “extremely satisfied”). In-house solutions received a satisfaction score of 6.51 (17% higher) and analytics-specific platforms received a score of 6.69 (20% higher).
Leaders feel challenged by technology aspects of EHR analytics. For organizations that are using EHR analytics as their primary analytics tool, they feel challenged by:
The reporting and querying is difficult/slow (43.4%)
The component is not robust or advanced enough (35.8%)
Interoperability (30.2%)
Lack of visualization (28.3%)
User interface is difficult to understand/use (26.4%)
Those that are not using EHR analytics cite similar technology challenges as the reason they are not using the component.
Dimensional Insight, maker of Diver Platform, the 2020 Best in KLAS healthcare business intelligence/analytics platform, today announced it is providing a complimentary* COVID-19 toolkit to healthcare providers.
This kit will provide critical measures or KPIs that hospitals and health systems need to track to better manage their COVID-19 patients, as well as the rest of their patient population. It will also include a capacity management dashboard that displays these current measures in an easy to understand format. In addition, the toolkit will include the logic to implement COVID-19 specific measures based on criteria provided by the CDC. This will result in better, more informed decisions in order to improve patient outcomes.
“As healthcare providers mobilize in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, their data is an important guide in helping them understand where their resources are being used and what their capacity is as new patients come in,” says Fred Powers, CEO and co-founder of Dimensional Insight. “We are glad to share our expertise with healthcare organizations and provide this toolkit to them when it’s needed most.”
Some of the measures that the new COVID-19 toolkit will contain are related to:
COVID-19 specific (Confirmed COVID-19 cases, Potential COVID-19 cases, COVID-19 ALOS)
Inpatient Units (Census, Occupancy %, Admissions, Discharges, ALOS)
Outpatient Units (Census, Occupancy %, Arrivals, Admissions, Departures, Average Hours to Depart)
Emergency Department (Census, Occupancy %, Arrivals, Departures, Admissions, Average Minutes, LWBT)
Critical Care (Census, Occupancy %, Arrivals, Departures, Average ICU ALOS, Off service)
Surgery Schedule (Utilization %, Cancelled Cases, Add-On Cases, Completed Cases, Average Case Minutes)
PACU (Census, Occupancy %, Arrivals, Departures, Average PACU LOS Minutes, Off service)
Dimensional Insight announced the results of a survey it conducted with HIMSS Analytics of 110 senior healthcare leaders. The survey found that while approximately two-thirds of healthcare organizations (67.9 percent) have an executive dashboard to support strategic decision-making, only one-third of those organizations (35.1 percent) use it on a daily basis. That means that in total, less than one in four healthcare organizations (23.9 percent) leverage their data at an executive level daily.
Survey results also show:
While the majority (92.7 percent) of organizations have an analytics strategy, less than one-third (31.8 percent) have been executing on that strategy for some time.
More than half of organizations (58.6 percent) use the analytics provided through their executive dashboard to facilitate decisions at only a departmental or single-hospital level.
Only 24.3 percent of healthcare organizations are able to leverage analytics throughout an entire multi-hospital system.
In addition, the survey looked at the number of analytics solutions in use. It found that healthcare organizations are using average of nearly four analytics tools. About one in six organizations (16.5 percent) have 10 or more analytics solutions that they are using across their system.
“While many healthcare organizations have the best of intentions when it comes to analytics, they struggle with how to facilitate data-driven decision-making system-wide and on a regular basis,” said Fred Powers, president and CEO of Dimensional Insight. “The sheer number of analytics tools in use means that different departments within an organization will often have different numbers or measures, and it’s hard to reconcile them, leading to a more siloed look at data.”
Guest post by Nora Lissy, RN, BSN, MBA, director of healthcare information, Dimensional Insight.
It’s no surprise that chronic diseases are killing the United States both physically and financially. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), seven of the top 10 causes of death in 2010 were from chronic diseases, where two of the conditions—heart disease and cancer—together accounted for nearly 48 percent of all deaths. To add to the problem – effectively treating these conditions comes with an exceedingly high price tag. According to U.S. News & World Report, 86 percent of all healthcare spending is currently going towards the treatment of these chronic diseases, equating to more than $3 trillion annually.
So how can the healthcare industry combat the rise of chronic conditions while keeping escalating treatment costs down?
One of the most effective tools for monitoring chronic disease management while still keeping an eye on care costs is business intelligence. Business intelligence has continued to increase in prevalence within the healthcare industry in recent years. According to a HIMSS Analytics study, 41 percent of hospital respondents reported they currently use clinical and business intelligence tools for their analytics, with that number expected to continue to increase over the next two years. With business intelligence continuing to prove its value within healthcare, physicians are starting to see the true potential of this data-driven tool to positively impact the industry as whole, including with the management and overall cost of chronic diseases.
Below are three ways that business intelligence can help to improve chronic disease management and lower the rising costs of care.
Guest post by Nora Lissy, RN, BSN, MBA, director of healthcare information, Dimensional Insight.
Nora Lissy
A recent report from Research and Markets predicts that the healthcare data analytics sector will grow to more than $34.27 billion by the end of 2022. This is indicative of how hospitals and health systems are realizing the intrinsic value in an analytics capability—which can be leveraged for everything from capturing information to interpreting the data—to make more informed care decisions. From a provider standpoint however, many physicians are still struggling to close the gap between turning data insights into actionable care improvements. For example, looking at a data set of former pharmaceutical plans for patients with asthma and using the information to make a more informed prescribing decisions for a current patient.
So what can healthcare organizations do to help bridge the divide between the clinical staff and the IT department to make it easier for doctors and clinicians to see how analytics can be applied in their day-to-day care routine? To start, they need to identify which members of their clinical staff have a “data mind” and can easily see how data can be turned into care improvement. For example, looking at an analysis of a hospital’s patient care transitions and adjusting patient handoffs to be more streamlined across departments. A person in this role can communicate to both the clinical and IT sides of the house why data needs to be presented in a certain way and where care adjustments and enhancements can be made.
So how can you find this diamond in the rough who has the ability to turn providers’ “Medical Minds” into “Data Docs” of tomorrow? Here are three tips to help determine who the best person at your organization would be to help fill these shoes:
Who is your organization’s “go-to?”
Who is the one person in your organization/department who everyone goes to with questions? It can be anything from a question about a schedule change or process to a new patient’s medication history. In many cases, this doesn’t even need to be someone from the clinical side or from the IT side. It simply should be someone who has a global view of the organization and who is familiar with the clinical side and has an understanding of what needs to happen on the technical side.
Who has good business intuition?
Someone who has a natural knack in the business world also typically has a data-oriented mindset. This is someone who is not afraid to question the reasoning behind certain recommendations and processes. This is not to say that this individual is counterproductive, but instead is the problem solver. Much like the organization’s go-to contact, this person also sees the full organizational picture rather than just through the lens of the department that they work for and are instilled with ability to translate the business and operational needs into the technical needs.
Dimensional Insight, maker of 
