Industry Voices—How visualizing patient data leads to better efficiencies

It’s no secret that data technology and visualization can improve organizations across every sector. Healthcare providers are no exception.

With the rise of electronic health records (EHRs), patient data has never been easier to access and share. But the impact of technology on the everyday lives of patients doesn’t stop there; providers can take their data—and decision making—one step further with data visualization. At the end of the day, the goal of any doctor, hospital or other healthcare provider is to improve the daily lives of patients and visualizing important metrics with charts, graphs and dashboards can do just that.

Here are three ways data can help:

1. Use data to reduce spending (and waste)

Physician practices and other healthcare organizations are not immune to waste. In fact, health organizations stand to benefit from streamlined processes just as much as any other organization. According to research, as much as 30% to 50% of healthcare expenditures are actually waste. By visualizing aggregate patient data, providers can find these weak spots and correct them.

By collecting and visualizing large amounts of data, decision makers within a healthcare organization can identify crucial areas for improvement and, more importantly, fix them. Efficiency doesn’t mean more resources; it means using the resources at hand as effectively as possible. The first step? Identifying those areas with clean, easy-to-digest data visualization.

For instance, you can create a visualization that tracks each doctor’s performance and workload. You can include details about their patient load and demographic distribution.

Or you can take data from patient records or billing software to correlate metrics and uncover areas for optimization. You can track charges, relative value units (RVUs) and accounts receivable to check the fiscal health of your practice.

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Creating a plan and putting it into action are entirely different. In order to make a significant and positive impact with data, healthcare providers will need buy-in from organizational leaders. Fortunately, this is where data visualization comes in very handy. Getting buy-in might not be easy, but it can be simple if you’re able to show stakeholders and decision makers exactly what needs to be fixed—along with a plan to fix it. For instance, looking at patient satisfaction data may indicate a problem with patients unable to get same-day appointments when they have a cold or ear ache. Or you may find certain doctors have higher numbers of patients readmitted to the hospital after surgery. Additionally, you can use data visualization to show projected data that estimates how much waste can be eliminated by the proposed changes.

Once you have buy-in, it’s time to build a team to implement your new, data-driven initiative. Assemble your team (stakeholders and organizational influencers) and discuss the problem areas you’ve discovered. Then, make sure everyone understands how their specific roles influence the system as a whole. With each team member on the same page, you stand a greater chance of implementing a truly successful strategy.

As your plan comes to fruition, use data visualization to track success and key guideposts along the way. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that speak to the overall goal of your initiative. For instance, in the example above about visualizing doctor workloads, KPIs might include average wait times or patient survey results.

Most importantly, make it easy for stakeholders to identify how far (or close) they are to achieving those goals. Doing this will allow each person to understand their own responsibilities and how they fit into the larger improvement plan.

2. Understand population (and patient) health

Decreasing waste isn’t the only way healthcare systems can benefit from data visualization. While these internal, operational improvements are crucial, external data is imperative to healthcare organizations as well. By coupling data visualization with EHRs, providers can more efficiently diagnose and treat their patients. Simply put, population health improvement boils down to information sharing and standardization. When doctors understand trends in population health, they can more easily diagnose and treat patients using data-based processes.

Here are some of the ways data visualization can improve healthcare for populations and individuals:

• Doctors can easily see patient trends and identify treatment options quickly
• Care providers can standardize processes for similar patients and patient groups
• Healthcare organizations can save time and costs by improving quality of care

3. How data can influence the cost of healthcare

The cost of healthcare is a hot-button topic, and properly implemented data visualization is one of the ways providers can improve it. In the end, standardization, data sharing and organizational efficiency in the healthcare sector benefits not only providers but patients as well.

By understanding where organizations can improve their processes, the healthcare industry as a whole stands to benefit from waste elimination and greater efficiency. This begins with data, and data visualization is the best way to turn massive amounts of information into easy-to-understand and actionable charts and graphs.

Beth Bryant is a senior account executive at iDashboards and specializes in creating data visualizations for healthcare institutions and professionals. She has over 17 years of experience working with customers to help them increase their return on investment.