ABC of Executive Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) for Doctors

Are you ready to become the best in your class medical practice?

As a medical doctor “business” or “enterprise”, in many cases you are not only the “dock” that treats patients, but you are also the executive management team.

How do you collect the required business intelligence (BI) to make fact-based decisions and business analyzes to manage and prosper your business?

In health care, as in other sectors, managers should be able to look deeper into the operations of their company and ask new questions.

The answers to this question come from data that is converted into information to support decision making. Too often, small practitioners suffer from little or no help to IT professionals, as well as the inability (or time) to receive data from the billing computer and the electronic medical record system to identify and use tangible opportunities for improvement from above and below. I know this because in the past thirty-plus years I have gained practical experience as a practice administrator for one, two, five, seven, and even forty years of multi-specialist group to personally identify these problems.

The qualities that make up a successful executing physicist of a small medical practice are as varied as they are rare.

For most doctors, especially fresh ones from the reserve or scholarships, business experience and decision-making context are and will always be key elements of the skill set of the executive doctor. They do not teach these skills in most medical schools, and there is no time to learn it in reserve. Then you have to go out and earn a living by doing something that pays well enough to be a viable business, and leaves you at the end of the month enough to pay for yourself, save and pay off these student loans.

In large medical institutions (hospital surgery centers, pharmaceuticals, device manufacturing, etc.) One would assume that these managers are well aware of the required maturity and expertise of the domain, supplemented by BI tools and technologies for practical decision support in terms of good strategies . May be. Or maybe not.

The explosion of business data affects enterprises of all sizes and configurations, but the ability to use data and transform it into useful business information is what distinguishes the Best-in-Class organization from the rest. So, it’s enough to talk about all these other things. Let it be granular:

How does medical practice work with 600 patients or less to gain access to better business information and turn it into something useful to make this practice prosperous?

Do you need this data in the solo practice of a doctor with 3500 patients? Not really.

What are your main barriers to accessing timely and useful business intelligence data?

In a recent survey on our website, where several answers were allowed, doctors almost evenly answered that they encountered problems with the collection, analysis and use of business intelligence:

• Lack of IT resources (20%)
• Software and services are too expensive (20%)
• I'm not sure I know what I need (20%)
• Technologies too hard to implement and maintain (20%)
• I do not have time to constantly collect everything (20%)

Although each of the above tasks contains its own classic history, sometimes the most interesting thing is what is missing. Very few doctors or their administrators or consultants need convincing when it comes to the value of BI and the ability to make timely decisions based on data. Building a business case is not a problem. The challenge is to mobilize the monetary and human resources necessary for the daily use of data flow in their practice.

Perhaps the most important aspect of effective business intelligence (BI) is the underlying data that goes into analytical systems. Purity, relevance, and timeliness are all critical aspects of the data that dictate the quality of business understanding that can be derived from its analysis.

As business practice data continues to grow in both volume and complexity, the need for effective data management becomes even more important. Best-in-class medical practices recognize the importance of these factors and line up resources inside or outside to provide access to more important business data, quickly absorb new disparate data sources, and provide valuable information in the window of opportunity for making positive changes.

Best-in-class medical practitioners optimize their internal capabilities and skill sets to create an environment that effectively collects, collects, and delivers critical information for a meaningful and practical way for a person or people who can contribute to improving the business reputation.

What have you done in your practice to prepare to become Best in Class?

Key pressure Attracting a doctor Investing in BI:

1. Inability to determine revenue growth opportunities
2. Poor visibility of daily operations
3. Slow access / lack of access to relevant information
4. Insufficient understanding of competitive activity.

In many cases, most managers face the same problems.

I have been the CEO of the company since 1979. I have been married to the CEO of another company for almost 15 years. Prior to that, he was CEO of the company for 6 years. Like you, we both find that, although we are in completely different sectors, we are both concerned about the growth strategy and long-term health of our companies. We also, in our fifties, and as such, are engaged in retirement strategies and retirement plans in the next decade. His latest venture sold for $ 15 million. What will we do with what we are building when the time comes to think about this apartment in Spain or Bangkok?

Daily fires are dealt with on a one-time basis. We both work in various councils of public organizations and committees. These councils and committees are made up of other leaders, community leaders, and merchants, and just good people, like our employees. Many times people ask us questions about the long-term strategic issues facing an organization or committee, saying: “You’re in business, you know how to do it better than us ... like us .... ". It feels as good as where: what data should be used as a guide or to provide understanding?

The ability to find and use opportunities for revenue growth, new markets, new products, new services, etc. Is crucial for the company's leader in medical practice. An effective analytical strategy can support this need. So how does a doctor who owns a small concierge practice build one?

Here are some data you need to start collecting BI for your practice:

1. Operating profit: measured as the average year change in operating profit / EBIT

2. Organic revenue growth: measured as the change in the average year in organic (non-acquisition) revenues

3. Customer retention rate: measured as the average percentage of customers retained over the previous 12-month period.

4. “Good” employee retention rate: measured as the average percentage of good employees remaining over the previous 12-month period. Poor performers and laggards are distracting if you save them, and training costs and training performance if you need to continue to replace the good ones, because they were recruited from you by your new market participant or existing competitor.

In my company and my husband's company, our most important job as a business leader is to identify and report on the corporate strategy that we faced as managers, and pass the plan on to those who are accused of its execution. In the case of a client concierge who includes a biller, a registrar, a membership sales coordinator, a person appointed to coordinate marketing and social networks, as well as networks and public relations, your nurse, your HIPAA privacy officer, and possibly your spouse or a significant other - who wonders if your strategy includes being at home at a reasonable hour for dinner.

Most likely, these first four data points are already available to you, and you do not need to buy more technology, hardware, software or tools. You probably do not maximize what you already have.

How best to use the data that you already have

Given these four priorities, the following key priorities are to allow more data to penetrate more areas of the business and to enable it to extremely analyze and visualize more important organizational data.

As consultants, we often cite these four questions and data for each initial consultation. When we ask client doctors to provide data, among other data, to evaluate the practice, you will be surprised how many of them have never seen these reports or did not use them to review the strategy. You do not need a consultant to ask questions; but first you may need help to do something with the answers.

When we work with clients, we also list these key priorities as a list of things that should be known about practice. From there, we ask the doctor to choose the data that, in his opinion, will be useful for moving to this category of Best-in-Class. We discuss how each fits into the analytical process for building a strategy. Again, you do not need a consultant to do this if you have a list of questions, but you may need coaching from a knowledge management consultant who will help you for the first time. Any health consultant with experience has heard more than once, “see One, do, teach, like every doctor.

Barriers to access

New clients often state that, although they have a great need for analytical capabilities, they often have some of the biggest obstacles for their hands. So often they are the "head of cooking and washing bottles." It is quite possible that when the software chosen to launch the practice was chosen, no one evaluated the analytical tools for the complex financial calculations necessary for financial leadership, which may already be in the system, but are not currently used to their maximum. Often, when we search for it, we find a way to make the system generate data in a good periodic report, and the doctor says: “Can my billing system do this?” Probably yes.

How to get added value for existing tools that you already have.

The key to measuring cost with a consultant is what they can do to help you maximize what you already have. Do not sell you more "things." We act as a coach, mentor and guide. You must give yourself permission to become a student again. Then, in the midst of a perfect storm, need, student and trainer intersect, and magic happens.

The puzzle pieces that contribute to an effective analytical strategy are diverse and very often confused. We start easy. A macro-level vision of BI is achieved by using some well-thought-out processes that we bring from our experience to help collect, transform and deliver your business information in some way and frequency to help you improve strategic decisions.

The main one of these processes is the ability to self-assess when we are not there, and to understand where things are today and where they should be in the future. This often involves coaching and mentoring, and not doing it for you.

Good consultants determine which data sources you have at your disposal today and what you may need in the future. Then they determine that you already have those sitting inside the billing box, and the EMR is just waiting to be asked to make a withdrawal. Sometimes data is not connected in such a way that two data sets can be “married” in one, which will help you make better decisions. If so, we discuss our observation with you, determine whether you agree, and if so, help identify a programmer who can dump data sets into a “bucket”, and then use this data to create a report that connects two pieces of data with something informative. Then we get them to automate the process in the future, so you program once and use it many times in different ways. It gives value to efficiency. Knowing what needs to be tied together, who needs to see it and how they can best use it.

Another analysis we carry out is to assess how many analytical users you have and what levels of knowledge they have, and how we can tailor the solution to effectively meet all needs. In most client evaluations, money is a large object. We have to be good stewards of how little a budget is available for this. This is equivalent to having a car in college: it has wheels, it works, but it may not be the most elegant car in the parking lot. It should be functional, not fancy. The quirky comes later if he ever comes. This is just data, not Porsche.

Best-in-class medical practices have an iterative method of self-esteem and regularity. They also most often have a solid process from all parts of the business (costs, revenues, overtime, RVU performance, refusal of contracts with payers, appeals, late payments, requests for a refund, growth of new patients, transfer of patients to other practices, delays in access to appointments, late appointments, patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, growth, etc.) that go to policy makers. We give priority to all these data sets and turn them into one compiled periodic report that is easy to read and can be applied. If this is not an action, what good?

The best-in-class medical teams also have the ability to ensure that the data will be transmitted to the front lines as a periodic report to their email on the corporate intranet. These reports should be paperless and receive the necessary sections that are associated with the registrar, should be automatically disassembled and e-mailed to the secretary as quickly as an office manager with a message that says “see Me, ”“ Fix it, ”needs improvement,“ or ”great work! “So good employees will“ get it ”and are busy with their own iterative self-assessments, instead of being persuaded to succeed. If they don’t understand it and don’t do something to correct what is wrong with the decision that comes in brand standard, then the training that is needed is a brand standard or some options in the form of coaching. Still no improvement or consistency? It will not be a surprise when you ask them to win the chance andbonne.

One of the other areas to which we introduce objectivity as consultants is the task of coaching the head of the doctor on how to implement and manage an analytical strategy within organizational development. During training, it is not taught. This is unfortunate, but it gives a good consulting work on working with a consultant! We teach the executive physician how to take responsibility for the business needs of BI and teach the downstream analytic hierarchy. If there is a practice manager or administrator, we teach them to be a leader or a BI champion as a physician assistant.

One of my personal favorite jobs as a consultant is “silo”. In healthcare organizations, many practitioners, hospitals, and other types of providers are disappointed when it comes to functional silos and hairdressers that interfere with the practice, the hospital, or some other provider organization (I’m talking about ACOs here and seem to be “integrated” and “Agreed” organizations) from using the efficiency of business processes from an interdepartmental point of view.

For example: data on sales of membership in medical concierge practice lead to financial forecasting. Финансовое прогнозирование управляет планированием и составлением бюджетов для новой линии обслуживания, запускает новые технологии покупки или аренды, новые виды найма дополнительных медсестер, врачей или практиков и т. Д. Эта нескончаемая экологическая система данных требует уровня интеграции и совместного использования бизнес-функций. Если у вас этого нет, вы упускаете некоторые из самых низких фальсификаций, чтобы приблизить свою практику к этой категории Best-in-Class.

Сделать данные более доступными для нескольких бизнес-функций, предполагая, что необходимые знания и соответствующие меры защиты находятся на месте, является первым шагом в этом процессе. Но когда хороший консультант учит, как максимизировать данные и что делать с тем, что это указывает, происходит магия. Без этих знаний и навыков данные являются инертными и гораздо менее полезными. Также должно быть централизованное место, где все данные будут жить, и где можно определить тенденции, чтобы действовать как красные, желтые и зеленые флаги. Данные должны оставаться свежими и не быть запутаны чрезмерно продолжительными периодами измерения. Если вы слишком долго будете ждать действий, данные могут стать бесполезными, потому что они слишком стары. Практика Best-in-Class использует более короткие временные рамки для измерения и оценки (M & E), по крайней мере, для их наиболее важных стратегических приоритетных данных, и принимает решение о регулярной частоте, чтобы получить полностью обновленную картину в интуитивном и визуально привлекательном виде.

Практика Best-in-Class также с большей вероятностью будет использовать автоматизированное создание данных и предоставление ключевых отчетов. Существуют консультанты, которые помогают клиентам от небольших практик к крупным интегрированным системам здравоохранения и ACOs. Работа по проектированию и организации жизненно важных инфраструктур бизнес-аналитики для сбора, сборки, отчетности и доставки данных, что позволяет быстрее и более эффективно предоставлять критическую информацию, необходимую для информации и понимания. В некоторых случаях это означает привлечение других сотрудничающих фирм для внедрения инструментов управления основными данными (MDM) для очистки данных и обогащения, моделирования и т. Д. В других случаях, когда деньги и талант плотны, это означает, что нужно настроить мелодию для этого jalopy, чтобы надежно вернуться в класс и работать каждый день.

Если вы считаете, что хотите узнать, что можно сделать с тем, что у вас уже есть, но могут быть недостаточно использованы, обратитесь к нескольким консультантам за краткой встречей и приветствуйте сравнение и решите работать с тем, который выглядит как наиболее тесно связан с вашими целями и бюджетом. Скорее всего, консультант может удаленно выполнять некоторые консультационные работы с помощью надлежащих логинов и доступа к вашей системе после того, как будут созданы все неразрешенные (NDA) и другие разрешения. Другие части консультации должны проводиться лицом к лицу. Если вы не можете заставить системного администратора предоставить удаленный доступ к консультанту, все это, возможно, придется выполнять на месте (конечно, с более высокой стоимостью).

После того, как консультант привлечен и по контракту, они должны предоставить вам несколько инструментов и проверок, чтобы начать работу с удаленной оценкой того, что у вас уже есть, и начать копать в вашей системе, чтобы узнать, как подключить частей для получения полезной информации как из системы управления практикой, так и из электронной медицинской системы записей. Вы можете быть удивлены тем, что консультант может получить ваши существующие системы для производства из уже существующих и приобретенных без покупки дополнительных надстроек. Иногда все, что требуется, - это показать кому-то, как сделать «классный материал» и настроить его для вас.

Часто, когда мы находимся в проекте, мы обнаруживаем, что программное обеспечение было выбрано врачом, который не понимал, что эти отчеты будут полезны, и в спешке, чтобы его запустить и запустить, менеджер практики не понимал важность BI поэтому он или она пропустили эту тренировку или модуль, а возможности отчетности лежат бездействующими в ящике. В другой раз это была репутация продавца, которая затушевывала эту часть, потому что они были там, чтобы получить подпись и чек, и не беспокоиться об объяснениях «всех этих других системных возможностей, о которых мало кто когда-либо спрашивал». Наш корпоративный характер заключается в том, чтобы попросить вас рассмотреть возможность приобретения чего-то нового после того, как мы исчерпали или оптимизировали каждую функцию, которую уже предлагает ваша текущая система. Мы склонны быть хорошими стюардами OPM (другие люди). Не все консультанты работают именно так. Некоторые берут плату искателя за то, что вы познакомили вас с поставщиками.

Независимо от того, кто вы решите помочь вам, позвольте им помочь вам разобраться в повседневных решениях на уровне отношений, чтобы найти новые и инновационные способы увеличения доходов без повышения цен, так что вы можете быть в тех 20%, которые оцениваются Best -in-Class для вашей специальности или практики.