HIMSS Survey: Focus on Clinical Outcomes Leads to More Success with Analytics

Nearly 85% of healthcare organizations leverage analytics in multiple areas, while two-thirds do so across the organization, according to the results of a HIMSS Analytics survey sponsored by Dimensional Insight.

Healthcare executives also feel their analytics solutions have been most effective at improving financial performance but see the most measured success with clinical analytics (77.7%), the survey of 109 senior healthcare leaders found. Financial analytics (73.5%) sees the second highest measured success, followed by operational analytics (70.3%).

The survey revealed how healthcare organizations implement metrics and measure return on investment (ROI) from their analytics program.

“As healthcare organizations move to value-based payment models, they are finding that focusing on clinical metrics, including readmission rates, infection control and patient outcome improvements, is critical for success,” said George Dealy, M.S., vice president of healthcare solutions at Dimensional Insight. “Analytics provides tremendous insight into these areas and can benefit healthcare organizations that are navigating this transition.”

A majority of healthcare organizations (83.5%) leverage financial analytics, while 75.2% leverage operational and/or clinical analytics. Only 6.4% reported not leveraging analytics.

The main method healthcare organizations use to determine ROI is financial returns and improvements (41.2%). Clinical outcome improvement (37.3%), staff efficiency (12.7%) and measured improvements across the patient journey (3.9%) also help determine ROI.

If a health system uses clinical outcome improvement as its primary metric, it sees the highest measured success rate (75.4%).

Of the healthcare executives who leverage clinical analytics, most (80.5%) do so to improve patient care. Nearly 70% of those who leverage financial analytics aim to increase revenue and cost management, while 75.6% of organizations leveraging operational analytics want to improve efficiency and decision making.

Many organizations (81.7%) also focus on patient satisfaction where analytics are employed.

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