Investing in data warehousing may pay off for the healthcare industry, but the key to success lies in how to mine that data.
Data warehousing might sound like data that just sits there, but Fred Trotter, healthcare data journalist and co-author of Hacking Healthcare, said that’s one of the challenges facing the healthcare industry today – how to make use of the data for better outcomes.
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“Lots of hospitals bought in to the data warehousing approach that was in vogue about seven years ago, and now they have lots of ‘iron in the closet’ that really doesn’t make sense any more,” said Trotter.
Trotter believes healthcare as an industry has just scratched the surface of what big data is capable of, and so the industry should think of it as an investment for the future. “So many CIOs are investing so much in staying afloat today, that they are not thinking about ‘what is going to ensure that this hospital is okay five years from now?,’” said Trotter. “Big data should be a way to get out ahead of where healthcare is going.”
The industry is moving towards getting more value out of the data said Lisa Gallagher, vice president of technology solutions at HIMSS, Healthcare Finance News’ parent company.
“We know that we are collecting more and more data in electronic form, because of the option of EHR technology, but also global technology,” said Gallagher. “We know that there’s a lot of data now and there will be more in the future, and the point of it is, how do we use it, other than it just sitting there?”
One example of a healthcare organization invested in data warehousing is UPMC Health Plan, owned by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
UPMC Health Plan’s data warehouse is robust because the organization has had it in place for years and has continuously improved it, said Pamela Peele, PhD, UPMC Health Plan’s chief analytics officer. “The ability to go directly to a well-organized warehouse for on-demand reporting and analyses saves time,” she said. And saving time, she added, saves money.