How hospitals can leverage data analytics to improve financial performance and efficiency in 2023

Organizations across every sector are continually involved in collecting, processing, and analyzing massive data to improve efficiency and profitability. One of the most notable sectors where data analytics is making a significant impact is healthcare. Healthcare analytics has the potential to reduce treatment costs, predict outbreaks of epidemics, and improve the quality of life in general.

According to market research, the global healthcare data analytics market is predicted to generate $22.7 billion in revenue by 2023.

In this article, we are going to focus on how data analytics can help improve financial performance and efficiency in the healthcare industry in 2023.

But before moving forward, let’s dive into the importance of data analytics and how they can drive a change in the healthcare industry.

What is Healthcare analytics?

Healthcare analytics examines current and historical datasets to predict trends, improve outreach and even better manage the spread of diseases. This field covers a broad range of businesses and offers insights on both micro and macro level. It can show ways to improve the standard of patient care, clinical data, diagnostics, and hospital administration.

Top ways to reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies

The proper use of healthcare data analytics and visualization can lead to providing better services to patients, resulting in lower costs, more revenue, and improved patient satisfaction. In this section, we will delve into different ways to reduce costs in healthcare using data analytics tools and solutions.

· Electronic Health Records (HER)

Electronic Health Records is one of the most prominent applications where healthcare data analytics plays a significant role. Every patient has a digital record with the hospital that includes medical history, demographic, allergy reports and laboratory test reports, etc. These records are shared with the respective departments via secured technologies and can be reviewed by healthcare providers at any point in time. Moreover, the EHRs can also be modified according to the patient’s health situation.

EHR can be utilized to improve the quality of healthcare by triggering warnings and reminders for diagnostics. They also enhance performance by streamlining routine tasks, reducing errors, and speeding up data access, thus significantly reducing costs in healthcare.

· Improved staffing with patient prediction

Staffing is a significant concern that is hindering healthcare providers from delivering optimum healthcare to patients. The shift managers have to constantly check the resource availability for providing better service to the patients.

They have also considered that too many staff members result in increased labor costs and also fewer members will result in poor patient satisfaction which can be fatal in some cases.

To solve this problem, healthcare service providers can use data analytics solutions as their savior. Hospitals and other healthcare players can use the admission records of the patients as their important source to feed into the data analytics solutions with time series. The acquired data allows the data scientists to identify the staff requirements, staff communication, and optimum shift rotation for optimum use of the staff members.

Moreover, data scientists develop a model that allows healthcare providers to have accurate staff predictions. As a result, hospitals can optimize the available resources without compromising patients’ health.

· Forecasting hospital bed demands

Hospital bed management is currently a real problem for hospitals due to the increase in the number of patients admitted. Healthcare data analytics helps to predict the number of discharges by using patient details such as date of admission, length of stay, etc. The bed’s management not only improves efficiency but also improves the quality of hospital management.

· Reducing avoidable hospital readmissions

As the healthcare industry works to enhance clinical outcomes while cutting costs, important goals for healthcare providers and insurers are to facilitate effective patient transitions throughout the spectrum of care and lowering hospital readmission rates. Healthcare organizations need to become data-driven if they want to thrive in the competitive environment.

Data analytics enables healthcare providers to collect and interpret unstructured data and analyze data in real-time. It helps to identify patients with specific symptoms and diseases that lead to readmission. These data-driven decisions raise the standard of care provided in hospitals, possibly reducing the length of stay and lowering readmission rates.

· Prevents healthcare fraud to enhance security

According to some research, 93% of healthcare organizations have faced a data breach. The reason is simple: personal data is extremely valuable and profitable on the black market. And any breach would have dramatic consequences. To resolve this issue, many organizations have begun to utilize healthcare analytics to detect changes in network traffic or any other behavior that can indicate a cyber-attack and help prevent security issues.

The security advancements like firewalls, antivirus software, and encryption technologies also address the demand for more security, and the advantages far outweigh the hazards.

· Enhances supply chain cost management

Like other businesses, hospitals depend on the supply chain to run smoothly. If the chain breaks down, hospitals lose money, and patient care and treatment suffer.

Analytical tools keep operations efficient and monitor supply chain parameters, saving more million annually in costs. To reduce documentation errors, these solutions also assist in automating requisitions, purchase orders, invoices, and other operations.

Conclusions

Today’s hospitals face many challenges as they juggle operational efficiency with the delivery of quality healthcare. Data analytics plays a crucial role in reducing hospital expenses and enhancing the overall quality of care that patients receive.

An excellent team of data professionals will help you to implement analytics solutions for your healthcare business to improve financial performance and efficiency. These tools will improve productivity, reduce medical errors, and increase user retention.