Healthcare Organizations Document Major Improvements in Quality, Cost and Efficiency Using Data, Analytics and Professional Services

Dozens of Health Catalyst clients document 125 performance improvements including lower mortality, higher revenue, better patient experiences

SALT LAKE CITY, February 20, 2018 – A well-defined benchmark in healthcare quality improvement is the Triple Aim—to improve the patient experience and health of populations while also reducing the cost of healthcare. Achieving the three-part goal, however, has been difficult for most healthcare organizations.

A bright spot in this environment can be found in organizations that have adopted a systematic approach to the use of data and analytics to guide their improvement initiatives. In 2017, nearly three dozen organizations ranging in size from small community hospitals to some of the nation’s largest integrated delivery systems documented 125 improvements in quality, cost and efficiency using technology and improvement processes from Health Catalyst.

The 2017 improvements, substantiated in 48 case studies (out of a total of 140 Health Catalyst case studies), represent a 69% year-over-year increase in documented improvement outcomes. Of the 125 outcomes:

• 42% included improvement in clinical outcomes such as reduced mortality, complication rates, readmissions, infections, and length of stay.
• 18% included improvement in financial outcomes such as decreased variable cost, decreased total cost, increased revenue, and improved margin, as well as decreased denials, write-offs, and accounts receivable (A/R) days.
• 35% included operational improvements such as improved workflow, reduction of unwarranted variation, improved patient access and decreased wait times for service.

The vast majority of the improvements documented by Health Catalyst’s clients were achieved in highly complex organizations with multiple hospitals and outpatient facilities, including several accountable care organizations (ACOs) responsible for the care of millions of patients. Thirty-one percent of the improvement projects involved workflow changes across multiple care locations, many of them affecting the entire care continuum for a patient population. Affected sites of care included the inpatient setting (38% of the total); the Emergency Department (31%); outpatient settings such as clinics (22%), peri-operative (20%); and the performance of risk-based payer-provider arrangements such as ACOs (10%).

“American healthcare is moving in a very positive direction with some real momentum, and the impressive improvements achieved by Health Catalyst’s clients indicate they are well positioned to ride that rising wave,” said Brent James, MD, a strategic advisor to Health Catalyst who is the former chief quality officer of Intermountain Healthcare and a global leader in bringing quality improvement science and methods to clinical care. “Improvements involving changes in practice across the continuum are extremely difficult to accomplish, so the scale of these improvements is incredibly impressive. Many health systems are still trying to focus on improvement in just one hospital.”

In addition to improvements in clinical, financial and operational outcomes, 42% of the documented total included improvements in analytics efficiency such as shortened time-to-value, time savings in producing and accessing information, and increased adoption of analytics by the organization.

The technology foundation for Health Catalyst’s success is the Health Catalyst Data Operating System (DOS™), a data-first, analytics and application platform that transforms raw data from virtually any data source into Deep Data— data that is meaningful, and actionable leading to actual business value at a lower cost. DOS accomplishes this by integrating and analyzing critical data from over 200 of the most widely-used data sources, and delivering real-time decision support within the existing workflows of clinicians, administrators and other healthcare professionals.

About Health Catalyst
Health Catalyst is a next-generation data, analytics, and decision-support company committed to being a catalyst for massive, sustained improvements in healthcare outcomes. We are the leaders in a new era of advanced predictive analytics for population health and value-based care with a suite of machine learning-driven solutions, decades of outcomes-improvement expertise, and an unparalleled ability to integrate data from across the healthcare ecosystem. Our proven data warehousing and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more than 85 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Health Catalyst’s technology and professional services help to keep patients engaged and healthy in their homes and workplaces, and to optimize their care when it becomes necessary. We are grateful to be recognized by Fortune, Gallup, Glassdoor, Modern Healthcare and a host of others as a Best Place to Work in technology and healthcare. Visit www.healthcatalyst.com

SOURCE: Health Catalyst