How Health Care Data Analytics is Used by Medical Providers: Examples of Data Analytics in Healthcare

 
The best way to discover how data is used in health care is to take a look at real-life examples of big data analytics in healthcare. Vie Healthcare Consulting tells the story of how data analytics informs preventative care.

Preventative care is essential for health care systems and patients. It can help prevent future illness and patient readmissions to health systems. It can also promote better patient outcomes and lower health insurance costs. This is especially true of high-risk patients and those with chronic diseases. Cancer screenings, well-child visits and counseling on smoking cessation are all examples of preventative care. By identifying risk factors that could have gone unnoticed, health care analytics can be used to promote better preventative care.

Lisa Miller, contributor to the Vie Healthcare Consulting blog, gives an example of how health care analytics can promote preventative care through insurance companies.

Miller explains that in 2017, Blue Cross Blue Shield analyzed several years of pharmacy and insurance data. The data was related to opioid abuse and overdose. Through the analysis, Blue Cross Blue Shield was able to effectively identify almost 750 risk factors that can predict whether or not someone is at risk of abusing opioids.

“Gathering all of this data was only possible with the help of analytics experts and the right software solutions,” Miller said.

How Data Analytics in Health Care Improves Patient Care
One of the most amazing things about data analytics in health care is that it enables health systems and clinicians to make better care decisions for patients.

“In health care, decisions often have life-altering outcomes—both for patients and the population as a whole,” said Catherine Cote in the same Harvard Business School article from above. “The ability to quickly gather and analyze complete, accurate data enables decision makers to make choices regarding treatment or surgery, predict the path of large-scale health events and plan long-term.”

Data analytics is helpful to health care professionals and organizations. Both health care providers and health systems need health information and data that makes sense. Without accurate data, they can’t make decisions that are in patients’ best interests. Data analytics provides these institutions with the data they need to make decisions that lead to superior patient care. This not only improves patients’ quality of life, but can also extend their life.