It’s no secret that the failure rate of data warehouses across all industries is high – Gartner once estimated as many as 50 percent of data warehouse projects would have only limited acceptance or fail entirely. So what makes the difference between a healthcare data warehouse project that fails and one that succeeds? As a former co-founder of HDWA, Steve details six common reasons: 1) a solid business imperative is missing, 2) executive sponsorship and engagement is weak or non-existent., 3) frontline healthcare information users are not involved from start to finish, 4) boil-the-ocean syndrome takes over, 5) the ideal trumps reality, and 6) worrying about getting governance “perfect” immobilizes the project.

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Proprietary and Confidential
© 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary and Confidential
6 Reasons Healthcare Data Warehouses Fail
By Steve Barlow

2. © 2014 Health Catalyst
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The Failure/Success Imperative
2
It’s no secret that the failure rate
of data warehouses is high.
Gartner once estimated as many
as 50 percent of data warehouse
projects would have only limited
acceptance or fail entirely. So
what’s the difference between
success and failure for an EDW?
Health Catalyst has pinpointed
six missteps many failed data
projects have in common

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No solid business imperative
3
Success requires a clear understanding
of your financial and clinical needs and
how you expect a data warehouse to
address them – defined with input from a
team of business and clinical staff who
will be using the information every day to
make decisions.
Six Reasons
EDW
PROJECTS
FAIL
1

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Executive engagement is
weak or non-existent
4
Senior leaders throughout the
organization including clinical,
finance, quality, strategy and
administration should steer the
project from day one through
deployment.
The governing body needs
to be fully engaged in approving
the budget, technical team,
vendor partner, and priorities.
Six Reasons
EDW
PROJECTS
FAIL
2

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Frontline healthcare staff not
involved from start to finish
5
Who better understands information needs and clinical
processes than the frontline information consumer?
Multidisciplinary, frontline teams—clinicians, technologists,
analysts and quality personnel—should be involved
throughout design and deployment.
Six Reasons
EDW
PROJECTS
FAIL
3

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Boil-the-ocean syndrome
takes over
6
Trying to be all things to all people
spells disaster. You simply can’t
deliver value quickly if you’re
bent on ―boiling the ocean‖
—identifying every possible piece
of data just in case it might be
needed at some time in the future.
Taking an iterative approach—
choosing one clinical area at a
time to focus on and gradually
improving quality and cost—is
what pays off in both the short and
long run.
Six Reasons
EDW
PROJECTS
FAIL
4

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The ideal trumps reality
7
Without consideration of current data capabilities, organizations
will start from scratch, defining every possible future data
requirement. They fail to understand what will be involved in
obtaining that data. Without balancing the ideal with reality
the road to failure looms large.
Instead, organizations should take a pragmatic approach and
work with data already available and add more when feasible.
Six Reasons
EDW
PROJECTS
FAIL
5

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Worrying about governance
perfection immobilizes the project
8
When it comes to governance, too often ―perfect‖ is the enemy
of progress. Believing you must have all the decisions wrapped
up before you start can immobilize a project. It’s more efficient
to put governance further down the development path.
Once you have data to govern and react to, the data
governance and prioritization process will accelerate.
Six Reasons
EDW
PROJECTS
FAIL
6

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Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
What is the Best Healthcare Data Warehouse Model? Comparing
Enterprise Data Models, Independent Data Marts, and Late-Binding
(TM) Solutions (Also by Steve Barlow)
Steve Barlow is a co-founder of Health Catalyst and former CEO
of the company. He oversees all development activities for Health
Catalyst's suite of products and services. Mr. Barlow is a founding
member and former chair of the Healthcare Data Warehousing
Association. He began his career in healthcare over 18 years ago
at Intermountain Healthcare, and acted as a member of the team
that led Intermountain's nationally recognized improvements in quality of care
delivery and reductions in cost. Mr. Barlow holds a BS from the University of
Utah in health education and promotion.