3 Reasons Business Intelligence In Healthcare Is Critical

When you think of the healthcare industry, you probably go straight to the “care” part. Doctor visits, hospital stays, and the like are probably what comes to mind. In order to keep the “care” part working, the business side of things needs to be running smoothly, too. I will discuss a few reasons Business Intelligence in Healthcare is critical to success.

Physician quality and performance evaluations

One excellent way to track your physicians' performances is by utilizing Business Intelligence, or BI. Several practices now send out surveys after a patient's visit to their office. It's not enough to just collect the information. BI can take that information and help you form useful reports regarding the performance of your physicians. For example, you could find out which of your physicians constantly has good bedside manner. This is especially critical when patients decide which physician they want to see.

You can also use Business Intelligence to have quantitative data regarding your physicians' performance. You could use BI to see how often a particular doctor misdiagnosed patients. This could be an indicator that a certain physician needs to be evaluated. Some misdiagnoses could result in a lawsuit, and that could be crippling for your business. BI in Healthcare is a necessary tool for physician evaluations. 

Patient outcome evaluations

Business Intelligence can be used to evaluate patient outcomes in clinical trials, and it can track regular physician follow-ups. When conducting clinical trials within the pharmaceutical industry, doctors are supposed to report trail patients' results throughout the time the patient is on the trail. Physicians can use Business Intelligence to collect and report this data. For example, if a patient fills out a survey about all of the side effects they endure each week while on the trail, this information can be collected and reported in a way that is easy for the physician to evaluate. The doctor can quickly report results to the pharmaceutical company. This information is critical, as it gets evaluated by the FDA, and can help determine whether the drug is safe enough to continue trails or be commercialized.

BI can also be helpful in reviewing patient outcomes from physician visits. It could be used to see if most patient visits result in pain medications or x-rays. If there is a correlation between the two, it may not be cause for alarm, but if every patient is sent home with prescription painkillers, you might want to monitor your physician for a bit. 

Financial and departmental evaluations

A less thought-about aspect of the healthcare industry is the financial department. With Business Intelligence, you can track a plethora of data in this area. One way BI can help is by tracking how many patients come in with Medicaid versus private insurance. From a purely financial standpoint, which is important to consider when running a healthcare business, Medicaid typically pays less for healthcare services. Knowing these statistics, you can better prepare a budget for your business.

Another important data point you might want to know in your financial department is how many patients pay in full, and how many work out a payment plan. If most of your patients request a payment plan, it might make sense to offer an incentive to pay in full (i.e. a discounted rate).

As you can see, Business Intelligence is necessary in the healthcare industry in order to keep it running smoothly and within a set budget. There are so many different data points to collect within the healthcare industry that you could run a query for just about anything. Let Business Intelligence improve your business today.

OK, I've talked about my thoughts on why Business Intelligence is necessary in healthcare, now I can't wait to hear what you think! Ask questions and add to the article by leaving a comment below.

Are you using Business Intelligence in an innovative way? Brag about how much it has helped you and your organization and share your experiences below.

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