While most healthcare organizations say they are using analytics in clinical areas, purely clinical projects are not a top area of focus for many organizations. For instance, only 20 percent of healthcare organizations are currently using analytics for population health, according to a new survey from HIMSS Analytics and Dimensional Insight.
For the research, HIMSS Analytics surveyed 110 senior healthcare leaders about their use of analytics. They survey found that 90 percent of respondents report using analytics in clinical areas, but only 28 percent of respondents are using analytics for effectiveness of care projects.
Overall, 86 percent say their organization is leveraging analytics in financial areas, while 77 percent report use of analytics in operational areas. Less than one percent of organizations surveyed do not use analytics at all.
About 22 percent of respondents say they are using for population health, and 11 percent are using analytics for chronic care management. The highest focus areas for those that are using analytics are financial measures (58 percent) and care quality measures (57 percent).
Among healthcare organizations that have not yet deployed analytics but plan to do so, 32 percent say population health will be a top focus area, while 59 percent say effectiveness of care will be a top focus area.
What’s more, the survey indicated that clinicians are the least empowered within organizations to drive decisions through the use of analytics. On a scale of 1 to 7 (1=extremely low, 7=extremely high), the average score of stakeholders to drive decisions through analytics was a 5.17. On that same scale, healthcare leaders rated clinical staff a 4.39 (15 percent lower than the average).
Of the survey’s participating organizations, 31 percent were multi-hospital health systems; 30 percent were integrated delivery networks; 19 percent were standalone hospitals; and 17 percent were academic medical centers.
"Clinicians will effectively use data for decision-making when it is integrated into their workflows, but that is seldom the case at this point," said George Dealy, vice president of healthcare solutions at health technology company Dimensional Insight. "The projects that healthcare organizations can more easily wrap their arms around are those that might use clinical data – such as for readmissions improvement – but are focused on improving processes that have financial implications as opposed to directly improving patient care."
