Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing for Healthcare
Healthcare organizations have historically struggled to find the elusive link between the investment in information technology and improved organizational performance. At least a portion of this gap has been driven by the focus on the implementation of information technology (IT) solutions to support transactional workflow with little to no attention paid to how people actually use the information contained in these solutions to make decisions. The strategic value of IT lies in its power to provide clinicians and leadership with direct visibility into the care delivery process. When little or no attention is given to the strategic use of information as part of an electronic health record (EHR)implementation, organizations are often disappointed by the return on investment and value received as a result of the significant investment.
One solution to help close this gap is in the implementation of Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. David Loshin defined Business Intelligence as "the processes, technologies, and tools needed to turn data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into plans that drive profitable business actions." Examples of Business Intelligence applications include the following:
- Clinical and Financial Analytics and Decision Support
- Executive Information Systems
- Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
- Query and Reporting Tools
- Data Mining
- Business Process Monitoring
- Online Scoreboards and Dashboards
The implementation of Business Intelligence applications requires the implementation of processes and technologies to extract and translate information contained in transactional information systems into a format that supports analyis and decision support. This process is called Data Warehousing and the physicial databases that actually store information are called Data Warehouses. Data warehousing requires processes and tools to define and manage data definitions, cleanse bad data contained in source systems, integrate data from diverse source systems, and organize the data into meaningful subject areas (i.e. populations or disease states).
According to Gartner, a leading IT reseach firm, the majority of Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing technologies have reached their maturity and are providing significant value in non-healthcare industries. However, in provider based healthcare organizations, Business Inteligence and Data Warehousing technologies are still in their infancy with less than a 5% penetration in the market.
Submitted by: Denise Johnson
Sources:
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, 2005; Gartner, Hype Cycle for Healthcare Provider Applications, 2005; Loshin, David, Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager's Guide, Addison Wesley, 2003; TDWI Business Intelligence Fundamentals, The Data Warehousing Institute, 2005.
More Information:
"Free and open source enabling technologies for patient-centric, guideline-based clinical decision support: a survey." Article Review
