Using Healthcare Data Visualizations for Insights

Applying Healthcare Data to Reports and Dashboards

In our real-world example hospital, it’s the job of the Chief Nursing Executive (CNE) to manage overall patient care including staffing levels. As part of the hospital’s initiatives to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the CNE’s team looked at processes ripe for improvement. Managing labor hours in a constantly changing environment was one of their biggest challenges. They couldn’t make the connection between budget overruns and staff who were clocking in early and clocking out late. With the help of the CNE’s business intelligence team, they were able to find and quickly implement a solution. With just a few IT resources and in less than six weeks, they were able to integrate data from disparate sources and create live, interactive dashboards and reports.

With the first goal accomplished, the CNE’s business intelligence team developed more reports and dashboards containing key decision making information faster than the CNE could come up with reporting ideas. In fact, so effective were the reports and dashboards that a staffing board was created allowing the CNE and her team to adjust staffing levels in real-time using data throughout the day. The result has been the ability to cut the amount of overtime paid in half. Over-budget staffing has become a thing of the past.

The CNE’s hospital now manages labor hours more effectively than ever before with server-based shared dashboards across the company’s intranet, providing easy access to knowledge workers, analysts, and management. Where it was once difficult for them to make the connection between budget overruns and staff who were clocking in early and clocking out late, the Chief Nursing Executive and her teams now adjust staffing levels in real-time using data throughout the day.

Healthcare Organization Challenges

When times are tough and budgets tight, healthcare organizations of all sizes need to use their resources wisely and produce value quickly. A major challenge is to manage workforce efficiently. For healthcare teams, business intelligence innovation and key insights can yield significant value in the short-term. Most hospitals are challenged by simultaneously managing a healthcare workforce that is able to maintain caregiver hours and patient volume ratio while achieving target labor costs. Hospitals and care centers must constantly control variances caused by over or under-staffing. In addition, information on variances must be communicated to all levels of the organization that make decisions on it.

Using visual data analysis, hospitals are better able to understand trends and see patterns allowing them to quickly make changes necessary and provide a support structure for better decision making. Using the example above, this paper will show how your hospital can leverage existing data to make better decisions and share and distribute this information meaningfully with key staff and executives.

When times are tough and budgets tight, healthcare organizations of all sizes need to use their resources wisely and produce value quickly. For healthcare teams, business intelligence innovation and key insights can yield significant value in the short-term.

With data visualization as the critical function of business intelligence, hospitals gain quick insights for fast-changing environments.

This easily enables hospitals to:

• Find innovative ways to improve labor productivity through a combination of people, processes, and technology
• Discover the benefits of incorporating data visualization software as the key labor productivity tool
• Establish a structured approach to understanding favorable and unfavorable results to take actions when necessary

Read this whitepaper to learn how hospitals are using data visualization and business intelligence to capitalize on labor productivity tools and make your resources count.