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HIMSS Analytics: Data analysis challenges ahead for hospitals


“The challenges that organizations face today with regard to clinical analytics are only going to be amplified in the future, as is evident in the later stages of meaningful use criteria,” according to a report from Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics.

“The need for clinical analytics is going to expand not only as healthcare organizations gain the ability to uncover more sophisticated analytics, but also by the steep and rapid increase in available clinical data as the result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)-based incentives,” stated HIMSS Analytics, of Ann Arbor, Mich.

HIMSS Analytics surveyed 10 CMIOs in focus groups to gain an understanding of the challenges and issues faced by healthcare organizations and evaluate the effective use of clinical analytics. The report noted that while the “small sample size is not meant to be representative of the market as a whole, the sample population does provide an excellent point for generating discussion around [the] topic.”

The report found that most respondents are collecting and/or leveraging clinical and/or claims data to enhance patient care cost, safety and efficiency. “Respondents are not only looking at information on a specific patient, but also exploring data across population-based metrics, such as data specific to a particular physician or to a certain condition, such as diabetes or hypertension,” the report noted.

According to data from the HIMSS Analytics Database, approximately a quarter of U.S. hospitals presently use a clinical data warehouse/mining with usage more widespread among larger hospitals. “More specifically, approximately 40 percent of hospitals with more than 500 beds use this technology, compared to 18 percent of hospitals with 100 beds or fewer,” the report noted.

Rule sets from organizations such as the Leapfrog Group, the Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems and government sources were identified as information sources on a broad range of data from quality requirements to patients' perspectives to consumer-oriented data.

In addition, the report found that at the end of the day:
  • Organizations track data that they are required to track by the government or other external organizations;
  • The data that healthcare organizations ultimately choose to look at is driven by cost; and
  • Respondents noted that they tracked information that is required for recertification of professional staff.

The report also identified a number of barriers and challenges to successful data mining efforts, including:
  • Respondents had issues with being able to find and manipulate data that exists only in a paper format;
  • Just because data are housed electronically doesn’t mean that it is ready for analysis; and
  • Respondents had concerns that some data elements that are required for data analysis are missing because they were captured in an alternative format that is not streamlined into the main data collection tool.

“Patient care is a continually evolving process and the availability of ever increasing datasets should yield information that will allow for enhanced patient care,” concluded the report. “The opportunity will exist both for payers and providers to examine more population-based data, to compare and contrast treatment plans for the same disease to identify which treatment plan had the most promising outcome.”

The report was sponsored by Anvita Health.

Last updated on July 13, 2010 at 3:48 pm EST