Business intelligence for healthcare: a full implementation guide
August 2, 2024
Healthcare business intelligence helps aggregate and transform data from EHRs, other medical software and devices, and outside the healthcare setting into comprehensible reports that allow healthcare providers to make informed business and clinical decisions.
Itransition develops and implements business intelligence solutions tuned to the specifics of the healthcare industry, ensuring their high performance, reliability, and seamless integration with other systems.
The role of business intelligence in healthcare
The healthcare industry's digital transformation has contributed to generating terabytes of complex data, increasing the need for sophisticated healthcare BI tools.
of the world’s data volume is generated by the healthcare industry
RBC Capital Markets
expected value of the global healthcare business intelligence market by 2027
Emergen Research
estimated CAGR of the healthcare BI market between 2022 and 2032
Future Market Insights
10 BI use cases in the healthcare industry
Business intelligence tools can enhance clinical and administrative workflows in almost any healthcare area, from patient diagnosis and treatment to clinical trials and drug research.
Individual health analytics
Analyzing each patient’s data and finding correlations between care services provided and health outcomes to improve patient care, enhance patient experiences, and reduce care costs.
Population health management
Analyzing data from multiple sources to identify health trends, risk factors, and opportunities for intervention in a particular group of patients to improve population health.
Staffing optimization
Using organizations’ data to optimize staffing levels, redistribute the workload, and reduce burnout rates and hiring costs.
Fraud detection
Processing data from various sources to detect and prevent insurance fraud, waste of resources, and healthcare system abuse.
Supply chain management
Analyzing inventory, purchasing, and distribution data to optimize the supply chain and reduce costs.
Clinical trial management
Tracking and analyzing data from clinical trials to improve trial efficiency and participants’ satisfaction, leading to enhanced accuracy of the trial outcomes.
Quality reporting & improvement
Creating data-based KPI reports, including the average length of a hospital stay, the number of readmissions, and patient satisfaction, to comply with regulations and improve patient care.
Revenue flow improvement
Processing financial data to optimize revenue cycle, including billing and insurance workflows.
Facility management
Analyzing data from IoT devices and hospital management software to monitor the safety, hygiene, and proper usage of healthcare facilities.
Drug research
Processing data from healthcare, pharmaceutical, and other sources to develop new treatments faster, more effectively, and with fewer side effects.
Real-life examples of BI in patient care & beyond
For more than fifteen years, our team has provided BI consulting and end-to-end implementation services for healthcare industry players.
10x
faster data processing
Pharmaceutical data analytics suite
Our experts transformed a BI platform for a US-based multinational company providing advanced analytics and technology solutions for the pharmaceutical market. We created a BI suite of data management and visualization apps with a KPI management solution and supported data migration to the cloud.
2x
faster test runs
Healthcare analytics applications revamp
We helped a global leader in designing, manufacturing, and selling analytical solutions for the healthcare and pharma industries to redesign a suite of five products enabling them to deliver a better user experience while also showing higher productivity compared to their previous versions.
3x
faster change request delivery
Client delivery team for healthcare BI
Our dedicated delivery team partnered closely with a global leader in BI, ML, AI, and data science systems for the pharmaceutical industry, separating client requests from product development and ensuring reliable planning and successful delivery. The team simultaneously supported 10+ corporate clients with their own specifics, complex processes, and different PM methodologies.
10x
faster data processing
Pharmaceutical data analytics suite
Our experts transformed a BI platform for a US-based multinational company providing advanced analytics and technology solutions for the pharmaceutical market. We created a BI suite of data management and visualization apps with a KPI management solution and supported data migration to the cloud.
2x
faster test runs
Healthcare analytics applications revamp
We helped a global leader in designing, manufacturing, and selling analytical solutions for the healthcare and pharma industries to redesign a suite of five products enabling them to deliver a better user experience while also showing higher productivity compared to their previous versions.
3x
faster change request delivery
Client delivery team for healthcare BI
Our dedicated delivery team partnered closely with a global leader in BI, ML, AI, and data science systems for the pharmaceutical industry, separating client requests from product development and ensuring reliable planning and successful delivery. The team simultaneously supported 10+ corporate clients with their own specifics, complex processes, and different PM methodologies.
10x
faster data processing
Pharmaceutical data analytics suite
Our experts transformed a BI platform for a US-based multinational company providing advanced analytics and technology solutions for the pharmaceutical market. We created a BI suite of data management and visualization apps with a KPI management solution and supported data migration to the cloud.
2x
faster test runs
Healthcare analytics applications revamp
We helped a global leader in designing, manufacturing, and selling analytical solutions for the healthcare and pharma industries to redesign a suite of five products enabling them to deliver a better user experience while also showing higher productivity compared to their previous versions.
3x
faster change request delivery
Client delivery team for healthcare BI
Our dedicated delivery team partnered closely with a global leader in BI, ML, AI, and data science systems for the pharmaceutical industry, separating client requests from product development and ensuring reliable planning and successful delivery. The team simultaneously supported 10+ corporate clients with their own specifics, complex processes, and different PM methodologies.
What our clients say
The solution Itransition delivered helped us further raise the bar in the level of services we provide to our clients and allowed us to significantly increase their satisfaction and bolster our competitiveness on the market. While working on the project, Itransition’s team has proven to be responsible and experienced professionals, often acting as a valuable technology consultant, and demonstrated a highly creative, autonomous, and proactive approach.
Thanks to Itransition’s technology expertise and experience in setting up development processes in multinational distributed teams, we have been able to accelerate delivery, scale teams up without slowing down development, and increase team velocity and productivity. All the above helped us speed up proving product viability, hitting important milestones, and showing demos to key company players.
4 types of healthcare business intelligence
Descriptive analytics
Healthcare professionals use it to summarize and describe past events or trends. For example, the path of a virus spread during a pandemic and the correlation between demographics and health outcomes.
Diagnostic analytics
This type of analytics is used to identify and analyze the root causes of past events or outcomes. For example, what caused the patient’s illness or why some healthcare services are less popular than others.
This type of data analysis is enabled with statistical models and machine learning algorithms to forecast future events or behaviors based on past data. For example, which insurance plan would suit a particular group of patients.
Prescriptive analytics
This type of analytics is used to generate data-based suggestions that healthcare professionals can use to decide on the best course of action. For example, which treatment plan to use for a particular patient’s condition.
4 major healthcare business intelligence components
To successfully gather data from different sources, and then store, process, and govern it securely and effectively, healthcare providers implement BI solutions that consist of four main components.
Extract, transform & load (ETL)
ETL is a process that involves acquiring data from multiple sources, cleansing, verifying, and reformatting it, and then loading the data into a repository.
EDW is a centralized repository that securely stores data in a unified format optimized for analytical operations. It also helps properly govern data inside the organization, safeguarding and securing it.
Data mining & discovery
Data mining and discovery is a process of uncovering insights essential to making informed decisions from large volumes of data stored in the data warehouse.
Data visualization & reporting
Data visualization and reporting help present analytical insights in more comprehensive formats featuring multiple visualization techniques.
Ready to make data-driven decisions to boost your healthcare services?
Essential integrations for healthcare BI
Healthcare CRM
Healthcare ecommerce
Hospital management
software
Pharmacy management
software
Laboratory management
software
Healthcare BI
Telehealth
Medical devices
EHR/EMR
Healthcare image analysis
software
Healthcare CRM contains patient data that should be processed by BI software, and their proper integration ensures safe, secure, and accurate data transfer between systems.
Analyzing customer data like purchasing history, shipping details, requests, and feedback improves the effectiveness of marketing and sales workflows, leading to better business decisions.
BI and HMS integration helps companies analyze ward and equipment usage patterns, personnel workload, and operational costs to optimize staffing and resource levels, while reducing wait times and improving patient experiences.
Connecting BI tools to pharmacy management software can provide insights into pharmacies' workflows, contributing to the safety and effectiveness of multiple groups of drugs.
A combination of LIMS with BI software provides data essential for equipment and reagent usage analysis, as well as forecasting sample volumes for better resource and task distribution, as well as the profitability enhancement of a laboratory.
Integrating BI software with telehealth platforms allows virtual care providers to identify the correlation between telehealth usage, its cost, and patients’ health outcomes to improve the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of their services.
Medical devices can feed clinical data to BI solutions in real time if integrated smoothly, contributing to the accuracy and relevancy of the insights provided by the BI tools.
Electronic health records systems are a vital data source for data analysis and clinical decision-making, while BI tools help monitor and analyze the efficiency of EHR’s usage by medical personnel.
Medical images are a source of valuable healthcare data. Presenting insights from medical images in an easily readable format allows clinicians of different specialties to determine a diagnosis faster.
Need a reliable partner to implement a BI solution?
Top BI tools for enhanced decision-making in healthcare
There are many business intelligence tools available for healthcare professionals. The choice of the particular solution depends on specific business needs, budget, and IT infrastructure.
A cloud-based BI tool with robust data processing capabilities suited for handling big data, deriving valuable insights from it, presenting them in a comprehensible visual format, and sharing them across the organization.
Key differentiators
- Augmented analytics capabilities, including intelligent narratives and anomaly detection capabilities
- Can be used as a stand-alone, free, self-service BI tool
- Can be flawlessly integrated with other healthcare software
is already tuned for healthcare industry specifics as a part of the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare platform
Limitations
- A steep learning curve
- An on-premises version has functional gaps compared to the cloud service
- Azure-only deployment
Platform pricing
Power BI Pro
$10 per user/month
Power BI Premium
$20 per user/month or $4,995 per capacity/month with an annual subscription and an unlimited number of users
Power BI Embedded
from $1.0081/hour for A1 Node
Free trial
available for two months
A widely-used data visualization tool that allows healthcare providers to connect to various data sources, create interactive dashboards and visualizations, and share insights with others.
Key differentiators
- A user-friendly interface
- A relatively low learning curve
- Intuitive analytics experience based on its patented VizQL engine
Limitations
- High price for Premium plans
- Better suited for small datasets
Platform pricing
From $15 to $70 per user/month
Free trial
available
BI software platform with an intuitive interface for complex data visualization allows users to create interactive reports and dashboards using drag-and-drop functionality. It handles big volumes of healthcare data and integrates well with other SAS products and Microsoft 365, which makes it more expensive than other BI solutions for healthcare.
Key differentiators
- Advanced predictive modeling and data visualization tools for identifying trends, patterns, and opportunities
- Can run on any cloud platform of choice
Limitations
- High costs
- Limited support for unstructured data and non-healthcare data sources
Platform pricing
Individual plans
up to $10,000 annually (enterprise license)
Free trial
available for two weeks
A BI platform encompassing data modeling, preparation, processing, visualization, and machine learning capabilities. It combines an intuitive interface and continually expanding features and capabilities, providing varied and deep insights for data-driven medical decisions.
Key differentiators
- Scalable architecture and In-Chip technology for handling large volumes of data and enabling faster query response times
- Embedding capabilities for integrating analytics into third-party applications and workflows
Limitations
- Restricted customization options for some visualization and reporting features
- Requires additional tools to acquire data from unstructured data sources
Platform pricing
$25,000 per year
Free trial
on request
A suite of BI tools that includes ad hoc analysis, reporting, and dashboarding capabilities. It integrates easily with Oracle databases, which can be an advantage for healthcare organizations that already use Oracle products. This solution offers similar capabilities to Power BI but is usually more expensive.
Key differentiators
- An efficient, scalable reporting solution available for complex, distributed environments
- Powers adaptive solutions for real-time decision management
Limitations
- High upfront costs and ongoing licensing fees
- Limited support for non-Oracle data sources and applications
- Limited mobile support for certain features and functions
Platform pricing
Starting
from $150 per month
Free trial
on request
A powerful BI platform that includes data integration from a wide range of data sources and systems, comprehensive reporting, and analytics capabilities.
Key differentiators
- Deployment flexibility, including enterprise SaaS and customer-hosted options
- Multi-cloud and on-premises installation, without limiting customers to any particular cloud
Limitations
- Complex pricing model
- Lower visualization capabilities compared to several other BI tools due to narrow choice of charts
- Limited data extraction capabilities
Platform pricing
Qlik Sense Business
$30 per user/month
Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS
individual pricing
Free trial
n/a
A data visualization and analytics solution with capabilities for interactive reports and dashboards creation, ad hoc analysis, and collaboration, which is especially useful for organizations leveraging other IBM products.
Key differentiators
- Scalable architecture and in-memory technology for handling large volumes of data and accommodating future growth
Limitations
- Steep learning curve for non-technical users
- Requires additional tools to acquire data from unstructured and non-healthcare data sources
Platform pricing
Limited functionality plans
from $10 per user/month for
Enterprise plans pricing is
available on request
Free trial
available
Healthcare BI software selection guide
Choosing the most appropriate software for your organization can be complicated. Therefore, our business intelligence experts have created a guide to streamline the selection process for our clients.
1
Define goals
Determine which business goals or clinical objectives you want to achieve by adopting a business intelligence solution, what data you need to collect, and what sources you have. List your requirements and prioritize them based on their importance for your practice.
2
Research & compare different BI solutions
Research the most popular BI tools for the healthcare industry and check how their capabilities correspond to your requirements. Pay attention to data integration, visualization, analytics, and reporting capabilities. Consider the scalability, interoperability, and flexibility of the solution as well.
3
Check vendor references
Look for vendors that have experience working with organizations similar to yours. Talk to other healthcare providers that have used the particular company’s services to see if they were satisfied with their partnership based on their pre-defined KPIs. Check if there are any red flags or negative reviews.
4
Ensure data security & compliance
Ask the vendor about their security protocols, data encryption, and backup procedures to make sure that your solution meets industry-specific security and compliance requirements such as HIPAA, GDPR, or PIPEDA.
5
Assess the ease of adoption & usage
Look for solutions that offer a user-friendly interface and intuitive navigation. Consider how easy it will be for your staff to integrate the solution into their workflows and how it will impact their daily tasks.
6
Consider the total cost of ownership (TCO)
Compare the TCO of different solutions to determine those offering the best value for your organization. Also, consider the potential solution’s ROI in terms of improving patient outcomes and reducing overall costs.
Benefits of healthcare BI
Delivers insights crucial for optimizing resource utilization and reducing expenses
Improves health outcomes due to more data-based clinical decisions
Enhances patient satisfaction by enabling care personalization
Provides demographic-based actionable insights that help boost population health
Helps discover new growth opportunities, thus increasing organizations’ revenue
Helps prevent financial losses by identifying possible fraud or a security breach
Healthcare BI software
Addressing healthcare BI adoption challenges
Healthcare companies can encounter obstacles or inefficiencies during the implementation and usage of BI tools that can hinder the success of their care services.
Challenges
Solutions
Due to the number and variety of data sources in most medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies, company personnel can enter inconsistent or incomplete data into BI software.
Any organization that wants to use BI tools to the fullest, should implement a robust data governance framework that includes data quality control, profiling, cleansing, and integration.
Healthcare providers must comply with data privacy and security regulations, such as HIPAA, to protect patient records and other sensitive data.
Ensure your BI solution is secure and compliant with local and general industry regulations. Security best practices include implementing role-based access control, data encryption, and auditing tools, to name a few.
Many healthcare providers have legacy systems installed that aren’t compatible with modern BI software, obstructing and compromising data transfer.
Potential solutions to this issue can include: ​​building custom connectors, using APIs, or implementing middleware to facilitate data integration, as well as upgrading your healthcare IT ecosystem in general.
BI implementation cost & timeline
The cost and timeframe of adopting a business intelligence solution vary depending on several factors, such as the healthcare organization's size, data complexity, the number of users, and the features required. According to Capterra, the prices for BI software range from $600 to $6,000 per year. Therefore, it is best to ask vendors for a quote for your organization specifically.
Cost factors
- Software price
- Hardware and infrastructure upgrade costs
- Data migration costs
- Integration costs
- Training and consulting costs
- Maintenance costs
Timeline components
- Planning and research
- Development
- Data preparation and migration
- Implementation and setup
- Personnel training
- Ongoing maintenance and updates
Our BI services for healthcare organizations
We provide a comprehensive range of BI services that enable stakeholders across the healthcare industry to maximize the benefits of BI solutions.
Consulting
We assist our clients throughout the entire BI implementation process, from their business needs analysis and implementation approach selection to data governance strategy development and setup. We also help our clients improve their current BI solution’s performance and security by assessing their current technology environment and data sources, and suggesting an appropriate optimization strategy.
Implementation
We implement healthcare business intelligence solutions of any size and complexity according to our client’s needs, including embedding BI capabilities into existing business applications, configuring and integrating platform-based BI solutions, and developing bespoke business intelligence software.
Optimization
We analyze healthcare BI solutions to identify opportunities for improvement and then implement the upgrades necessary to improve BI software performance, reduce operational costs, and fix security issues.
Support
We offer L1-L3 support services, including bug fixes and troubleshooting, regular system health, security, and compliance assessments, and scheduled maintenance activities like system upgrades and security updates. Our experts can also take on BI platform administration and management so that healthcare providers can focus on their core activities.
Improve healthcare decision-making with business intelligence
Business intelligence has become one of the most effective tools for addressing key healthcare industry issues emerging from rising costs, changing regulations, and growing patient demand. However, healthcare providers should select a reliable and experienced implementation partner to successfully adopt BI software and invest in a solid implementation framework. Our team has over 15 years of experience implementing custom and platform-based BI solutions. We are ready to support you on the BI adoption journey, adhering to your company’s unique requirements, budget, and timeline.
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