Tapping BI for Better Healthcare
By Priyanka Akhouri
Mumbai, Apr 1, 2008

The term Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies, applications and methods, which are used for gathering, integration, analysis, and presentation of business information, and at times to the information itself.

The BI market in India is witnessing growth with growing IT adoption across various industry verticals, and the increasing competition in globalized markets - which has made BI a key differentiator. The healthcare sector is accordingly experiencing an increase in the adoption rate for BI.

Need for BI in Healthcare

According to Sanjay Deshmukh, country manager of Business Objects (India/ SAARC), the biggest challenge faced by this industry is to provide higher quality customer care while keeping costs to a minimum. This is where the requirement of a BI model for the sector arises.

Most Healthcare organizations have multiple levels of planning -including strategic, on-going forecasting, and the annual budget. The two common failures in the planning processes are lack of integration and lack of adequate feedback.

"The healthcare sector requires BI model to comprehend a multi -layered statistics-driven architecture. This statistics driven architecture applies not only to the budgeting process, but also to the strategic planning and forecasting processes," said Deshmukh.

So what role BI plays in the healthcare sector and how it improves productivity?

BI works like a 'simple to use' application, which interacts with the database of the hospital, without any interference with the Health Information System (HIS). A well-designed healthcare BI system should allow any healthcare analyst to utilize most aspects of the system, without being trained in its use.

According to Sandeep Sinha, industry manager (healthcare practice) of Frost and Sullivan, "Business Intelligence for hospitals in the present era is very critical. It enables every management layer in the hospital to visualize information, which is relevant to them. With the help of BI one can create business dash board, which could be uniquely configured by the user for the information he/she deems important."

There are 4 benefits that the healthcare sector can reap from BI

1. Protection of Sensitive Data

BI increases workflow efficiencies by analyzing consolidated data from clinical, administrative and financial areas. It detects fraud by analyzing historical information, tracking and closely monitoring current data. It protects sensitive information related to the patient, ensuring that only those with the right access levels - have access to it.

According to Sanjay Mehta,CEO of MAIA Intelligence, BI application allows the user to change the format in which the data is presented as per his/ her needs, without the need for programming skills with the underlying data sources.

2. Enhancing Patient's Treatment

Usage of BI applications improves patient care, and optimizes resource management by tracking and predicting healthcare service utilization. It allows maintaining patient relationship management, diagnostic and treatment relationships.

"With BI applications, the healthcare sector can maintain patient demographics, such as patient's age, sex, ethnicity, location, and the average length of patient stay," added Deshmukh. It monitors and analyzes patient's diagnosis, and condition to facilitate timely and effective clinical decisions.

3. Facilitation of Appropriate Decision Making

BI helps to track the performance of doctors, departments, and medical material requirements per department. It enables rapid and sound decision-making capabilities for CEOs and other management decision makers.

The instrument improves costs, decisions making of the management, and eliminates waste by closely managing inventory and performances. "BI brings multiple groups together in the effort, and starts to emphasize analysis and push information closer to the point of service to enhance decision-making to make data actionable," added Deshmukh.

4. Enabler for Effective Planning to Improve Productivity

BI can enable healthcare organizations to improve productivity with automation, cost savings, productivity and performance management. This leads to integrated planning with appropriate feedback, and in turn maximizes efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness.

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