Decoding Business Intelligence in Healthcare

Healthcare has now been around for centuries, with modern medicines and newer technologies helping to extend the life span of human beings by decades. Meanwhile, business intelligence itself is a fairly fresh innovation that refers to the collection and use of data to improve business operations and strategic planning.

In recent times, especially with the pandemic, data-driven tools in healthcare are sweeping the industry in improvising patient care, making it more personal. Data discovery, which used to be limited to the expertise of advanced analytics specialists, is now something everyone can do using Business Intelligence tools. These tools give healthcare professionals the knowledge to resolve urgent issues, collect all data in one place, forecast future outcomes and more.

Several businesses still rely on spreadsheets for their data analytics. However, it is estimated that 1-in-5 large businesses have experienced financial loss due to spreadsheet errors. The need for data accuracy is even more critical in a healthcare organization where the stakes are higher. In order to drive data-driven insights and improve healthcare, organizations are now implementing what is being termed as “clinical business intelligence” or “healthcare BI.” Organizations are using BI tools to store data in a centralized data warehouse. These tools also ensure that the patient data is secure, provide complete and accurate analysis, and share reports among departments for a modern, unified approach to healthcare.

It further reduces costs, increases the revenue of the healthcare provider and efficiently improves the overall finance of the organization. As a result, healthcare is increasingly becoming data-driven as many decisions are made based on insights derived from them. Here are other reasons why healthcare organizations are equipping their teams with fast, on-demand insights rather than dashboards.

Naren Vijay, Executive Vice President, Lumenore

Faster decision making

Business Intelligence helps in quick decision-making. Healthcare professionals from different departments frequently need to collaborate in critical cases. However, sometimes due to the shortage of resources, treatment gets delayed. This is primarily due to the unavailability of equipment, facilities and complicated system operations. In critical cases, access to patient insights can catalyze collaboration among several departments. This, further, aids in faster and accurate decisions to provide adequate patient care.

Personalized Patient Care

The first step in the process of offering personalized and effective patient care is creating comprehensive patient records. The idea is to maintain a complete record digitally, which can serve as the starting point to use Business Intelligence. Therefore, Business Intelligence is no longer a choice or demand for this industry; it has evolved as a need that nurtures survival in the healthcare industry.

Predictive Analytics also plays an essential role in enabling institutions to pre-empt potential medical challenges that one could face. This helps them to take timely precautionary measures to mitigate the impact. With individual patient records capturing all information, including individual and family health histories, diagnosing a health issue has become easier. Moreover, with the help of Business Intelligence and analytics, one can prevent genetic or lifestyle disorders in patients. With access to family medical history data, genetic disorders are easier to identify. This, in turn, helps the practitioners in evaluating the risk of any diseases and recommending changes in the lifestyle or any other treatment plan that can prevent that disease.

In addition, these can track populations and perform analysis to comprehend better the likelihood of illness and infection in specific areas and locations. Furthermore, these tools can improve communication and information sharing between different organizations and even between countries.

Enhance operational efficiency and reduce operational costs

The healthcare industry majorly functions as a business model. While doctors and clinicians get into the role of helping people, money is still a driver that needs to be acknowledged. A successful model would be extensive, with resource costs, tools, equipment, and pharmaceuticals all adding up. However, clinical business intelligence tools can help drive these costs down in various ways.

Using innovative technology and BI-powered tools can help in better targeting. These tools can also provide specialists in the medical field with an improved way to review the data gathered from multiple sources. These sources could include patient files and medical records. However, they can be expanded to include additional information such as financial records and more, to enable the facility in their care and treatment planning. These tools integrate with other software in a medical establishment. They can provide better management of day-to-day operations and faster diagnosis and thus help in bringing down operational costs.

Speed up drug development

Improvement in healthcare AI can enable faster development of life-saving drugs. This will help save lives and free billions in costs that can be transferred to healthy ecosystems. The algorithm can be used to simulate and analyze potential medicines to predict their effectiveness against deadly diseases and suggest the most effective one. This would drastically speed up the time to market by repurposing existing drugs.

Drug development can also be optimized by deploying AI. Tools like Biomarker Monitoring Platforms allow gene-level identification of diseases and analyze millions of patient data points from a drop of blood. Tools like Biomarker Monitoring Platforms allow gene-level identification of diseases and analyze millions of patient data points from a drop of blood. All these can open new possibilities and ensure that the drugs market faster and help save more people.

People strive to live longer and stay healthier safely and cost-effectively fashion with every passing day. As a result, it has become imperative for the healthcare industry to figure out how this can be achieved on a large scale.

Author: Naren Vijay, Executive Vice President, Lumenore