In the healthcare industry, recently, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding data mining and how it might reshape the way healthcare facilities work and invest in the future.
As a part of their legacy data management, healthcare facilities have been using data retention for more than a decade. Many healthcare facilities, however, are now understanding that just proper retention is not enough, and data mining is an option that digs beyond the present and provides long-term benefits such as providing key insights that help in making strategic decisions for the future. This has made data mining not only increasingly popular but also an essential part of the retention strategy in the healthcare industry.
Now, let’s explore why data mining is essential, and discover the many ‘hidden benefits’ it can provide healthcare facilities with.
Ahoy! Find hidden gold in your data!
Data mining is as simple as it sounds. It is the process of evaluating large amounts of data to identify patterns, solve problems through analysis of data, and find meaningful information that can help add value to facilities.
The process of data mining, however, requires:
- Storing large amounts of data
- The computing power (Infrastructure) to deal with that data
The problem with large amounts of healthcare industries’ data is that the data that is generated due to healthcare EDI transactions cannot be mined through traditional methods due to its complexity and volume. Healthcare data requires complex IT infrastructure for analyzing, which could only be provided easily through data mining tools. Thus, data mining is an optimal solution, using which if healthcare data is dug, it can provide healthcare facilities with hidden gold in the long run.
Data mining also helps facilities to find patterns and abnormalities, make predictions, improve patient care, and much more. Therefore, by having information acquired by mining, facilities can make discoveries that will surely benefit them, help them explore avenues that they haven’t considered previously as a part of their business model, and also find future investments in different sectors such as the management of hospitals, pharmaceuticals, research, insurance, etc., making it an excellent solution for a long-term investment.
Mining! A meaningful search!
Data mining is very beneficial, yet facilities do not explore this hidden potential in their data. Some facilities might even wonder why they should invest in such a process.
Well, let’s understand why mining is a meaningful prospect in which healthcare facilities should invest.
For example, let us imagine a student who learns several things in his freshman year. The information learned by the student can be compared to the large amounts of data collected by healthcare facilities.
Now, this student, however, forgets everything that was taught previously in his sophomore year. Since none of the information learned is applied or used by the student, one might even ask if the education of the student was a good investment?
While relating the same example to healthcare facilities’ legacy data, one might note, facilities that only focus on their current data set being retained and not exploring the value inside their historical data could be making a serious mistake. The disposal of valuable knowledge in the data could cost facilities potential investments and benefits that could be acquired in the future.
Thus, healthcare facilities must consider exploring and making use of the legacy data that they already have and consider data mining as a serious option as it can provide them with gold in the long run.
Mining digital data with a pickaxe?
Once facilities consider that mining is a suitable option for them, another immediate question that arises would be how facilities should approach this task, and what tools they must look for.
Some options that healthcare facilities might want to consider while deciding how to mine their data are listed below:
- Business Intelligence:
While looking for Business Intelligence, facilities could look for tools such as Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, etc., These tools would help in slicing and dicing the facilities data.
Facilities will go through three levels of analysis in BI:
- Performance Reporting
- Informed Strategic Planning
- Predictive Analysis
Performance Reporting: This form of reporting will provide facilities with patterns and metrics.
Informed strategic planning: This analysis will help facilities with planning and budgeting.
Predictive: This analysis will help facilities predict key performance indicators and metrics for the future, based on patterns and abnormalities in the past.
Such an analysis will positively improve patient care, population health outcomes, and discover trends and patterns and is a beneficiary option that healthcare facilities must consider using in the long run.
- Artificial Intelligence -Powered OCR:
This is an excellent option to consider when unstructured data is to be studied. Unstructured data is not easy to mine and requires powerful tools like AI-powered OCR. Such a tool can read through any form of structure and mine meaningful information. For example, data in a hand-written prescription can be searched using the AI OCR. This tool can help enhance efficiency, save money, manpower and time.
Digging your future investments?
Data mining has several advantages that brings potential money to all its shareholders. Some of the major areas where data mining can help healthcare facilities are listed below.
Data mining helps in:
- Discovering trends/patterns
- Positively impacting patient care
- Improving population health outcomes
- Improving personnel efficiency
- Saving money
- Detecting fraud and abuse
Let’s dig that data! Contact us:
Healthcare facilities now understand the importance of data mining and how valuable it could be, due to which the momentum around data mining is increasing rapidly. Consequently, the future of data mining seems to be becoming an essential requirement for the data management and an excellent option to invest in.
While investing in data mining, it is also important, however, to consider a provider that is excellent in legacy data management and can provide the appropriate options such as Business Intelligence and AI-powered OCR, etc., required for data mining.
Triyam is a leading provider of EMR/EHR data management solutions, with a specific focus on legacy data archival and retention. Contact us today for a free evaluation on how we can help your facility with the appropriate requirements for data mining.