Healthcare is confronting rising costs, aging and growing populations, an increasing focus on population health, alternative payment models, and other challenges as the industry shifts from volume to value. These obstacles drive a growing need for more digitization, accompanied by a data-centric improvement strategy. To establish and maintain data as a primary strategy that guides clinical, financial, and operational transformation, organizations must have three systems in place: Best practices to identify target behaviors and practices. Analytics to accelerate improvement and identify gaps between best practices and analytic results. Adoption processes to outline the path to transformation.

1. Three Must-Haves for a Successful
Healthcare Data Strategy

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A Successful Healthcare Data Strategy
Forward-thinking health systems are talking about
both improvement strategies and the use of data
to fundamentally transform healthcare while the
industry confronts shared challenges.
Obstacles include:
rising costs
aging and growing populations
the need for better access and outcomes at lower cost
changing demographics
and an increasing focus on population health, alternative
payment models, and other new models as the industry
shifts from volume to value-based payment.
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A Successful Healthcare Data Strategy
To succeed in an increasingly digitized and
data-driven industry, organizations must
ensure that their data strategy is central to
their overall improvement strategy, as
opposed to two independent strategies.

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Guiding Principles for a Data-First Healthcare
Improvement Strategy
Meeting current healthcare challenges requires
an overall vision with a data strategy to support
and sustain organizational goals—namely, a
robust and comprehensive approach that
leverages data at the center of the
improvement and delivery strategy.

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Guiding Principles for a Data-First Healthcare
Improvement Strategy
To leverage data as a strategic asset,
organizations must make data a primary, not
tangential, strategy.
Three systems comprise the foundation of a
data-first transformation strategy (Figure 1) that
supports the fourth element, improvement:
1. Best practices
2. Analytics
3. Adoption
4. Improvement

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Guiding Principles for a Data-First Healthcare
Improvement Strategy
Figure 1: The organizational foundation for data as a strategic asset.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
Organizations that have built successful and
sustainable improvement strategies, with data
and analytic strategies supporting them, have
a few key characteristics:
1. A Strong Governance Structure
2. Aligned Incentives
3. Technology and Tools for Expanding
Data and Interoperability

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#1: A Strong Governance Structure
First, they have built a structure to support
sustainable improvement, with strong
governance, clear priorities, and engaged
clinicians with the required resources to
support the efforts (Figure 2).

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etc.
Domain 2
Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#1: A Strong Governance Structure
Outcomes Improvement
Executive Leadership Team
Domain 1
Domain Guidance Team
Provides domain oversight
and drive priorities
Outcomes Improvement
Teams
Drives innovation & Adoption
Workgroup(s)
as needed
Innovates
Data Governance
Committee
Content & Analytic Teams
Figure 2: A governance structure that supports data as a strategic asset.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#2: Aligned Incentives
Second, successful health systems have aligned
incentives to ensure focus and commitment
around their organizational vision and strategies.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#3: Technology and Tools for Expanding Data and Interoperability
And, third, they have provided the technology
and tools to manage expanding data and
interoperability (e.g., a cloud-based analytics
platform. such as the Health Catalyst® Data
Operating System [DOS™]).

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#3: Technology and Tools for Expanding Data and Interoperability
The right tools and technology, supported by the
right structure, can successful improvement,
such as the following:
Achieving self-service analytics with
rapid response analytics.
Widespread data utilization for
continuous data-driven improvement
Integrated healthcare data for timely,
adaptive, purpose driven analytics.
Data for improved stroke care delivery
and reduced mortality.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#3: Technology and Tools for Expanding Data and Interoperability
Achieving self-service analytics with rapid
response analytics:
By deploying a data platform and analytics
application across its organization, one health
system established a single source of data
truth, eliminating silos and freeing up analysts
to spend most of their time analyzing, rather
than preparing, data.
As a result, the organization achieved 95
percent relative increase in the number of
users accessing the analytics application.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#3: Technology and Tools for Expanding Data and Interoperability
Widespread data utilization for continuous
data-driven improvement:
By leveraging an advanced data platform and
a robust suite of analytics accelerators, a
health system reduced expenses and
increased hospital in/outpatient revenue for
more than $33 million in positive margin.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#3: Technology and Tools for Expanding Data and Interoperability
Integrated healthcare data for timely, adaptive,
purpose driven analytics:
Having recognized the value of immediate access to
adaptive, integrated, rapidly deployable healthcare
data, one health system embraced a next-generation
data model.
With its new capabilities, the organization deployed
dashboards, visualizations, and analytic insights in
as little as one week, achieving a 95 percent
reduction in work hours required to incorporate
system enhancements and 88 days saved in the
time required to implement system enhancements.

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Key Characteristics Behind a Successful and
Sustainable Improvement Strategy
#3: Technology and Tools for Expanding Data and Interoperability
Data for improved stroke care delivery and reduced
mortality:
With the help of analytics, an organization identified
opportunities to improve its stroke care delivery
through facility-wide automated alerts, reducing
the need to transfer patients to other facilities.
The health system achieved a 33.8 percent relative
reduction in mortality for patients who had had a
stroke and $118,000 in cost savings—the result
of a 23.7 percent relative decrease in average
variable costs and a 19.4 percent relative
reduction in length of stay.

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A Healthcare Data Strategy to Meet Evolving
Industry Needs
The need for change is clear, as is the
opportunity.
As healthcare data skills, assets, and
capabilities mature, health systems must
use data strategically to transform care
clinically, financially, and operationally.
An evolving industry will require and drive
the need for broader and richer patient data,
compelling organizations to move forward
with a clear data and analytics strategy.

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A Healthcare Data Strategy to Meet Evolving
Industry Needs
Successful health systems will acquire the
needed data (e.g., data beyond the clinical
care setting), integrate it into operations,
supply an interoperable data platform, and
create an agile governance structure to
manage the data and support a culture
around data use.
Furthermore, to truly transform healthcare,
that data strategy has to be embedded in an
overall improvement strategy and vision.

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For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

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More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
Three Must-Haves for a Successful Healthcare Data Strategy
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Daniel Orenstein, JD, Senior VP, General Counsel, and Secretary
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David Grauer, MBA, MHSA, Senior VP Professional Services
How to Run Your Healthcare Analytics Operation Like a Business
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David Grauer, MBA, MHSA, Senior VP Professional Services
Four Critical Phases for Effective Healthcare Data Governance
Health Catalyst Editors

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Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
David Grauer comes to Health Catalyst after 23 years in executive leadership positions at
Intermountain Healthcare, a Utah-based, not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, and 1,400
employed physicians that is widely recognized as a leader in clinical quality improvement and in
efficient healthcare delivery. For the last nine years, Grauer served as CEO/Administrator of
Intermountain Medical Center, a 502-bed hospital in suburban Salt Lake City that is both Utah’s largest
hospital and the flagship of Intermountain Healthcare. Previously, he was CEO/Administrator of two
other Intermountain hospitals: Cottonwood Hospital and TOSH—The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital.
David Grauer, MBA, MHSA

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Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing, analytics and outcomes-improvement company
that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes improve clinical, financial, and operational outcomes
needed to improve population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data warehouse
(EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more
than 65 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking
physician practices.
Health Catalyst was recently named as the leader in the enterprise healthcare BI market in
improvement by KLAS, and has received numerous best-place-to work awards including Modern
Healthcare in 2013, 2014, and 2015, as well as other recognitions such as “Best Place to work for
Millenials, and a “Best Perks for Women.”