Advancing Analytics to Improve the Patient Journey

The healthcare system is swimming in data, but providers sometimes struggle to harness that firehose of information to deliver more patient-centric care.

As providers begin to see a gradual uptick in patient volumes after the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are grappling with care delivery models that have been upended. In some cases, the pandemic has changed the ways patients schedule appointments, engage in clinician encounters, conduct post-visit follow-ups, and pay their bills.

Most practices don’t need more data; they already have more data than they know what to do with in electronic medical records, scheduling and care coordination systems, virtual health apps, and patient surveys. What they need is actionable, predictive insights from their existing data that improve engagement, quality and consistency at each phase of the patient journey.

While this notion of leveraging data to enhance the consumer experience has lagged in healthcare, other industries, like entertainment and e-commerce, have long recognized the benefits of advanced analytics. For instance, Netflix and Amazon use analytics to gain insights into users’ viewing and buying history and habits. With this intelligence, they predict what the user may be interested in watching or buying next, recommend television series or products, and ultimately keep the user satisfied and engaged. It’s without question that the physician practice setting could benefit from similar analytical methods.

In an industry as notoriously siloed and fragmented as healthcare, obtaining data-driven insights for the right patient at the right time in a clinician’s workflow can represent a significant challenge; however, it is important to keep in mind that data and analytics are not the be-all, end-all. They are valuable tools that enable physicians to make better treatment decisions within the right context. With that caveat, the following are several practical ways that providers can leverage advanced analytics to deliver more patient-centered care at various points along the patient journey.