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Business Intelligence for the Health Care Industry: Actionable Insights for Business Decision Makers
Business Objects is also known as :
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Business Objects BI,
Business objects Intelligence,
Business objects tools,
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Business decisions,
business intelligence health,
BO health,
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Industry Intelligence Business,
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Health business solutions,
businessobjects,
predictive analytics software,
Operational Business Intelligence.
Executive Summary
HOSPITALS FROM ACROSS the world are facing
increased pressure to improve operations from multiple
directions. Legal requirements, an aging population in
many developed countries, and an ever-increasing need to
be service-oriented are forcing hospitals to do more with
less. Even with recent investments in information
technology, much of the data has not been coordinated,
analyzed or deployed to improve operational performance.
What is needed is a new generation of business
intelligence (BI) tools and applications designed with the
health care sector in mind, capable of integrating cross-
and inter-departmental processes and information. The
resulting intelligence would enable hospitals to make
better operating decisions, increase transparency, change
business processes, and drive better overall performance.
Those that learn to effectively harness the information
generated by their IT systems will enjoy substantial
productivity improvements.
1.0 Value Proposition
Countries around the globe may have different approaches
in funding their health care systems, but one thing remains
clear and constant: it is in everyone's best interest to have
them operate as efficiently as possible. And hospitals are a
classic example of an operational excellence challenge:
human and capital resource intensive, high levels of
variation per case, and low levels of "automation"
(inversely, a high level of human intervention) require a
proactive management, where relevant data can improve
decision making. Margins per case, capacity utilization,
bed occupancy, referral patterns and more can help
hospitals and clinic managers do more with less.
Mr. François Lemoyne knows the situation well. He is
the CFO and CIO of l'Hôpital Sacré-Cœur of Montreal,
Canada:
"Outside of specific budget or funding initiatives, the
majority of management's efforts are invested in the
optimal management of the resources at hand. Our
main objective is, with the resources we have
available, to provide the general population with as
high of a quality of service as possible. In order to
deliver on that goal, it's clear to me that we need to
have the pulse of the organization."
Mr. Bernhard Wieser, CIO of Schön Kliniken, a private
hospital group with 12 locations in Germany, agrees:
"On average for the last year we maintained 98 to
99.9% utilization, meaning all our beds are more or
less occupied by patients. Hence the number one
priority for us is to understand who is coming in our
hospitals and occupying our beds, what services they
need and which they receive, and how long they stay.
We have to provide the best care possible while
managing the bottom-line."
In this paper, we discuss how advances in business
intelligence are enabling improved decision making in the
health care industry across three broad axes: simplicity
and relevance, agility and integration.
Specifically, new interfaces and approaches to
technology and business intelligence are empowering a
wider array of staff and decision makers by providing
relevant data within a user- and context-friendly interface.
Through various hardware solutions and/or Web
interfaces, data can now be delivered beyond
administrative offices and directly to clinical staff who can
make the most use of it. In turn, this access to increasingly
"real-time" data provides a finer level of insight into data,
resulting in more precise decision making and
optimization. Further, by integrating BI within business
processes and distributing it more widely, decisions can be
made at the point of impact. But to ensure that the data
can be trusted, a solid data foundation must first be
established.
2.0 Simplicity and Relevance
Effective business intelligence is both simple and relevant:
simple to allow a large number of users to access the
information through an interactive, user-friendly
interface"regardless of the type or source of
information"and relevant so that users can employ it to
address immediate issues and support business decisions.
2.1 Simplicity
The end goal of business intelligence is to empower
decisions "at the point of impact""in other words, the
person who is the most adept at making a decision should
have access to the most relevant information to affect
change"be it an operational clerk ordering supplies or a
nurse making patient priority decisions. To achieve this
level, information must be delivered in a simple way, in a
form that is consistent with the business decisions it
supports.
This new level of simplicity is required as business
intelligence in hospitals and most modern organizations is
reaching a wider audience. Says Wieser:
"Today we have approximately 70 users on the
business intelligence system, mostly from the
administrative departments. With the various projects
we have in place, we are looking at rapidly doubling
that number and reaching 140 members of our
organizations, all the way to doctors, who now have
access to simple CRM to understand and manage
where their patients are referred from."
As a natural consequence, as BI reaches a larger number
of staff and users, the objectives have to evolve, as shown
by the progression of users at the l'Hôpital Sacré-Cœur of
Montreal:
"Our first dashboard was designed for senior
management, and had high level reporting. But
rapidly, we've allowed them to customize their
dashboard to have data that was most relevant to them,
all based on a common back-end. Then we gave a
number of middle managers access to the same data,
but they are not power users, so we have to make it
simpler for them, and deliver the right data. A manager
might want to know how many beds are occupied and
for how long, while a doctor wants to know how many
patients are waiting for a consultation. Same goes for
analysts in production, statistics and clientele groups."
Mr. Lemoyne also highlights some of the preconceived
notions about delivering data that is most relevant and
helpful, not just data that is easy to deliver with current
systems:
"I have to stay agnostic to technology. I don't start
with software limitations and optimize"I start with a
white sheet of paper, establish what is the ideal
information to deliver to each specific role in the
organization. Then our role is to deliver technology
against that ideal."
One simple to use, next generation tool is Polestar,
available from Business Objects, an SAP company.
Whereas new reporting solutions once were only suitable
for technically-savvy software developers, Polestar
enables business users to explore data without prior
knowledge of data structures or content. Polestar brings
together the simplicity and speed of search capabilities
with the trust and analytical power of BI tools, giving
immediate answers to business questions. Users employ
familiar keyword searches to find information hidden in
data sources, and then navigate and explore directly on
data"no existing reports and metrics are necessary. By
increasing self-service BI and maintaining IT control, this
technology empowers business users to create their
content thereby reducing IT report creation backlog. It
reuses existing security, metadata, and other services from
Business Objects Enterprise, meaning it's easy to
administer and quick to deploy, often in a matter of days,
thereby abbreviating time to market and expediting
decision making.
2.2 Relevance
To improve health care managers' decision making
support, simple and modern business intelligence
technology is a start; industry-savvy BI experts also bring
significant value. Vendors, system integrators and third
party consultants have established themselves in various
industry verticals where they can contribute significantly
to business performance. They know what it takes to be
successful, and are familiar with typical user requests,
challenges and issues. Given their understanding of the
technology, they can also accelerate the implementation
process significantly by linking those business
requirements to specific functionality and existing content
and templates.
These templates come in the form of pre-defined data
models, queries and metrics, and save significant time and
effort when launching a new BI implementation. Not only
is the implementation smoother, but also implementations
designed with best industry practices in mind are also
more likely to deliver on the business needs, and hence to
deliver on the premises of a BI endeavor. These
implementations have shorter development cycles and by
extension, lower costs. The business content can act as a
foundational solution and can be extended by individual
organizations to meet their specific requirements.
Business Objects customers that exploit the power of
user focused tools can also access "business blueprint"
templates. These data models and templates solutions
include a bundle of technology and industry knowledge
that leverages SAP's and Business Object's substantial
business knowledge, which was developed over many
years while delivering software solutions to the world's
largest companies. By leveraging these "packaged"
industry best practices, customers increase the likelihood
of a successful BI deployment. At the same time, they
shorten development cycles and lower costs. The business
blueprint templates can act as a foundational solution that
individual organizations can extend to meet their specific
requirements. Specific components of business blueprint
templates include: pre-defined "extractors," large
quantities of pre-defined data models, master data objects,
authorization roles, query views and reports"all of which
are delivered in the software.
The simplicity of business user oriented tools like
Polestar and the enhanced relevance enabled by bundles
such as business blueprint templates are enabling solutions
for competitive advantage. The ease of use and enhanced
relevance of these solutions build on the capabilities of
existing BI systems, thus increasing their value to the
organization.
In the health care world, Mr. Lemoyne sees an
opportunity for a leader to emerge:
"We all recognize the need for industry-specific
expertise, both from our vendor and their system
integration partners. In health care, there is even a
better opportunity to share and collaborate, since we
don't compete directly for the same business."
3.0 Agility
While the staggering and growing quantity of data is a
trend to monitor in industries such as retail or consumer
goods, health care practitioners rely on BI to manage an
increasing number of decisions, which all have
repercussions on the rest of the organization and
ultimately, on the bottom-line. Says Mr. Lemoyne:
"The system needs to be very agile. We track every
patient and stretcher in the emergency unit minute by
minute. We know how many patients are in and how
long they've been there."
But more granular information, even delivered just-in-
time, is valuable only to the effect that it can impact
change and improve actual management decisions.
"Our objective is to minimize the average emergency
stay from 24 hours to 12 hours by next year. To
achieve this lofty goal, we need to know everything
about our resources down the treatment chain: how
many beds are available now, which ones will be
available when, and what people occupying beds are
waiting for"sometimes there may be bottlenecks
further down the chain, and we need to know about
them too in order to control our patient flow. We have
dashboards with clear metrics for how many patients
should be at each stage, and we meet every morning to
discuss priorities based on this information."
4.0 Integration
Business intelligence is moving beyond the reporting
function to an integrated system embedded within
business processes. In the past, users had to wait for the
completion of multiple steps in order to review the data:
transactions were entered, data was stored, consolidated,
processed, extracted in various data warehouse and
"cubes" for analysis, and finally delivered. Only then was
the information ready for analysis and reporting. The new
approach is to think of BI "in parallel" with business
processes; thereby providing clients with more timely
access to better information about critical business
processes as decisions are made, not after the fact.
The ultimate benefit is derived from complete
integration of the information across medical, clinical and
financial systems and departments. Planning for day-to-
day activities can be integrated across the organization.
From the onset, the benefits of such integration include
consistent and accurate information and patient
management, and ultimately, substantial service and
financial improvements.
But as business intelligence must be integrated within
the business processes, it must also be integrated in a way
that is consistent across the organization. The manner in
which data is collected, processed and stored has an
immense impact on the quality and value of business
intelligence tools. Master data management (MDM) is the
area which defines how data is managed from its initial
collection to final use, a critical underpinning of
successful BI implementations. This is especially true for
the health care industry, where a significant number of
software can be used simultaneously, and where mergers
are becoming a more frequent occurrence. Notes Wieser:
"Partly because of our acquisition strategy,
harmonizing the data continues to be one of our most
significant challenges. All these systems and all the
different codes within the database are growing in
different directions. To get a conflict-free definition of
the different entities in the system was definitely the
biggest challenge. And it took a whole lot of effort to
get everything back into the source system. I would say
that I used to spend at least a quarter of my time on the
harmonization effort"both because it's crucial and
because it's difficult."
The concept of MDM is fairly straightforward: without
clean and properly aligned data across the organization,
it's difficult to answer key business questions. And
although it might appear straightforward to solve, MDM is
hampered by the level of complexity of today's IT
organizations such as l'Hôpital Sacré-Cœur of Montreal:
"This is an important challenge for us. We have built a
best of breed system, focusing on the best solution to
solve each problem. As a result, we now have 60
systems that are more or less integrated, each with
different IDs and passwords. For example, the list of
doctors exists in multiple instances, and we are in the
process of eliminating redundancies and make sure
everyone uses the same source. Without being overly
aggressive, we have to remove a certain amount of
creativity from our users in the way they use the system
and enter data, to ensure a higher level of consistency
and quality. Part of the solution is technology, part of
the solution is training."
5.0 The Payoff
The challenges faced by hospitals and the health care
industry will only grow with time. Trends such as legal
requirements, an aging population, and an ever-increasing
need to be service-oriented, are here to stay. To maintain
their competitive advantage, hospitals must leverage
internal and external information into an accessible, usable
medium and provide BI to a larger number of employees.
Business intelligence solutions will continue to evolve as
exciting new capabilities are adopted broadly within the
marketplace.
Mr. Wieser offers a vision of the future:
"Beyond optimizing our current operations, we also
have to look at our future objectives"and in that
regard, business intelligence is more than a cost-
cutting device: it's really a strategic tool. We need to
plan ahead and model scenarios based on our current
operations, but also simulate and plan for various
potential acquisition scenarios."
Hospitals that enable business intelligence solutions built
on the tenets of simplicity and relevance, agility and
integration have the potential to sustain competitive
advantage in a world where change is the only constant.
Simple and relevant BI tools can empower administrators,
doctors and nurses to make effective decisions with
increasing speed and agility. By integrating real-time
decision making with mission critical business processes,
smart health care organizations can keep up with and even
excel in the innovation-driven world of the 21st
century.
Moving from legacy BI solutions to these next
generation solutions represents a giant step forward and
corporations will continue to face a choice: execute these
best practices or fall by the wayside. Early adopters will
see empowered employees, rapid execution and
adjustments to plan, resulting in operational improvement
required to deliver superior health care services to
consumers.
I am grateful to Pierre-Luc Bisaillon and Paul Barter of the New
Paradigm team for their help in researching this paper and I also
thank SAP and Intel for their financial support of this White Paper
series. However, the views expressed are my own and my
company New Paradigm takes responsibility for the opinions expressed
herein.
Don Tapscott, chairman and founder, New Paradigm
DON TAPSCOTT, one of the world's leading authorities on business strategy, is the founder and chairman of international think
tank New Paradigm. Established in 1993, New Paradigm produces ground-breaking research on the role of technology in
innovation, competitiveness and society. The company was acquired by BSG Alliance in November of 2007, and is expanding its
syndicated research programs globally. Currently four multi million dollar efforts"The Enterprise 2.0, Talent 2.0, Marketing 2.0
and Government 2.0"investigate strategies for winning through next generation enterprises.
Tapscott is the author of 11 widely read books about information
technology in business and society, including Paradigm Shift,
The Digital Economy, Growing Up Digital and The Naked Corporation. His
most recent book, Wikinomics: How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything is an international best seller in 20
languages. It was a finalist for the prestigious Financial
Times/Goldman Sachs Best Business Book award and has been chosen by
many publications including The Economist as one of the
best books of the year. He is also adjunct professor of management at
the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of
Toronto. His clients include top executives of many of the world's
largest corporations, and government leaders from many
countries. He holds a master's degree in Research Methodology and two
Doctor of Laws (Hon).
www.newparadigm.com
Today's competitive environment is fast and fierce, marked by
complex supply networks and increased consumer power. In order to
succeed, companies in the health care industry need to fully leverage
the power of information to their advantage. No longer is it
enough to leave information access to a select few; every business
person needs to be empowered to access, analyze and act on trusted
information, wherever and whenever needed, and in the context of the
relevant business activities.
That is why leading companies worldwide rely on solutions from
Business Objects and SAP to provide end-to-end solutions for better
Business Intelligence (BI). The business
user is in the focal point, with an intuitive and system-agnostic
solution set that delivers on
even the most demanding needs. Embedded into the context of business
activities and work environments, information is immediately
relevant and actionable. At the same time, IT can focus on being an
enabler of innovation, rather than just working overtime to just
"keep the lights" on.
With solutions from Business Objects and SAP, companies in the health care industry get:
- More effective business decison making. Simple and intuitive user interfaces foster broad adoption, while reducing IT backlog.
Business users quickly access any type of information, regardless of its source. And with BI accelerator technology, response
times are consistently fast, independent of data volumes analyzed or question asked, allowing IT to meet the increasing demand
for real-time BI embedded into business operations.
- More efficient IT, freeing up resources for innovation.
The broadest solution set in the industry, combined with best-in-class
capabilities, dramatically reduces the need to deal with multiple
vendors. Due to inter-operability with any systems, applications or
databases, investments are protected and don't require expensive
custom-integration. And by providing the right level of controls with
an agile infrastructure, IT can focus on managing service levels, and
does not need to manage individual users.
- Faster realization of value from IT investments. Out-of-the box content and templates, across both SAP and non-SAP data
sources fosters accelerated deployments of BI solutions while significantly increasing the chance to "get it right" from the
beginning, as compared to pure custom-built approaches. And alternative delivery models (e.g. on-demand, appliances) provide
drastically reduced setup time and lower maintenance.
The result is that IT is better able to meet the information needs
of business users thus becoming a strategic partner to the business.
To learn more about how solutions from SAP and Business Objects can
help you empower your employees to make the best-informed
business decisions, visit www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/index.epx.
SAP and Intel not only understand the challenges businesses face in
today's volatile global marketplace, but since 1994 they have
worked together to offer a powerful set of optimized solutions on
innovative platforms that help companies quickly adapt their
strategies and execution. Today, more than 74 per cent of all new SAP
installations are deployed on proven Intel platforms,
enabling IT to become more efficient and responsive with breakthrough
performance, energy efficiency, and reliability needed for
virtualization and business-critical applications.
With Intel solutions, companies can be more responsive, efficient
and dependable using innovative, highly reliable and compatible
Intel Xeon and Itanium®2 platforms that help them optimize their IT infrastructure and scale with confidence. They can benefit
from:
- Performance and flexibility: Build their business on scalable, flexible infrastructure that can grow with shifting enterprise
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technology based on Intel® Core™ microarchitecture and 64-bit virtualization capabilities.
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architecture, server consolidation, virtualization and reliability features.
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virtualization and software optimization and enabling investment.
by Don Tapscott