Using a data warehouse in healthcare startups to boost efficiency

Healthcare data can help transform your healthcare startup by providing deep insights for rapid decision-making or advanced automation.

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Using a data warehouse in healthcare startups to boost efficiency
Benefits for Healthcare startups

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Data warehouse in healthcare: Understanding the basics

Data warehouse in healthcare: Understanding the basics

When it comes to healthcare, it is of utmost importance that you consider data security and management, as you’re dealing with a plethora of private health information that must be kept secure. If breaches are found that jeopardize patient information, you could face serious HIPAA compliance fines that are both costly to your reputation and finances. As a result, it’s time you consider implementing a data warehouse system that supports business management and analytical decisions, including predictive modeling. Almost every successful healthcare startup guide makes significant mention of this model, as it allows you to have control over your data and make informed business decisions when it comes to the future of your practice.

Benefits of healthcare data warehouse

One of the most important tips to succeed in a healthcare startup is to incorporate a solid data warehouse system, with plenty of obvious benefits to its services. Data warehouse systems allow you to communicate data effectively and increase the quality of care within your practice significantly. 

Attaining strategic goals

Having a data warehouse allows you to effectively communicate goals pertaining to your business, with analytical features enhancing your decision-making in regard to your services. You can keep track of all operations, and identify weaknesses and strengths to implement in your business strategies.

Digitization and automation

Data warehouses are excellent in automating tedious tasks, as they are able to retrieve, transfer, and store data in seconds. Implementing these systems can save you an immense amount of time, and allow you to streamline your processes. 

Better clinical decisions

Naturally, data-driven insights are often highly accurate and allow you to be able to oversee all your business information and make more informed decisions when it comes to clinical operations. You can improve your processes and procedures, with data warehouses providing an avenue to overcome revenue challenges in healthcare practices through clarification functions.  

Better insurance claims and payment process

Working with data is highly efficient and streamlined, which allows you to examine your details from a wider perspective. Doing so contributes to significantly more accurate payment processes, and in turn, allows greater claims for insurance. 

Efficient reporting

Being able to access a variety of data services, and from one centralized location, allows for faster processing and increased accuracy in regards to your reporting. Naturally, running your own business requires consistent evaluation of KPIs, as well as general operations in order to identify areas that need specific attention. Data warehousing can provide analytics instantly, that assess your performance precisely. 

Better patient care and experience

Data warehouses provide a clear outline of all patient details, across any time period, and pertaining to any specific consultation. You can access all key information to be able to produce relevant treatment and payment plans, which all elevate the quality of care.

Benefits of healthcare data warehouse
Key features to look for in the healthcare data warehouse solution

Key features to look for in the healthcare data warehouse solution

While every data warehouse varies, with each one presenting features unique to specific areas of healthcare, there are some universal aspects that you must consider keeping an eye out for. Implementing these ensures you’re meeting the needs of your clients, as well as optimizing your resources. 

Data storage

It is absolutely key that you have the ability to store business and patient data, specifically with Protected Health Information (PHI) storage. This way, you can view and assess information from one place for your convenience, as well as improve business operations by having a top-notch managerial system in place. 

Data integration with other systems

As a healthcare practitioner, it is highly likely that you will need to transfer data or view information from a variety of different points. To ensure that this process is smooth, it is vital that you incorporate a data warehouse that can be integrated with various systems, including EHR, HR, and medical databases. 

Data security and compliance

To be able to function at the simplest level, you need to ensure you follow security regulations and standards. This minimizes your risk of security breaches and reduces threat levels of external hacks and data leakages. 

Performance and reliability

You also need to ensure that your data warehouse system can execute high performance and that it is able to adapt to your evolving business needs and requirements. Data should be automated, and there should be a sense of elastic scaling within its computing abilities.

Healthcare data warehouse architecture

There are two data warehouse architecture models that are the most popular when it comes to implementing these systems, with these being the individual data mart model and the enterprise-wide data model. 

The individual data mart model works with unique subsets of data that are derived from different domains. This means that you’re able to scale your business where required and accommodate new resources in the case of significant growth. You can start small and build up specific data areas to expand analytics, which makes this model ideal for smaller startups as they first gain traction. 

In the enterprise-wide data model, there are comprehensive components available that enable more complex functions for your business networks and operations. This makes it ideal for larger health organizations that work with various types of data, with multiple data source layers. This includes EHRs, lab testing and results, as well as financial reports. Practically everything and anything concerned with operations can be analyzed, with there being a staging zone layer that filters and sorts through details. Data can be extracted, loaded, and transformed for analytics, with the data storage layer acting as the official warehouse. As the heart of the system, the data storage layer can be accessed by SQL, and is anonymized and separated into specific departments. Finally, analytics and business intelligence layers produce models that can be used immediately for business decision-making. You can use various methods, and choose what best works for you, including statistical analyses, data mining, and other data visualization techniques. If this sounds complex, don’t worry, as there are many specialist roles that are concerned with these specific data warehousing aspects.

Healthcare data warehouse architecture
Challenges of data warehouse in the healthcare industry

Challenges of data warehouse in the healthcare industry

As you can see, there are many clear benefits and ways to conduct healthcare data warehousing. However, it is important to acknowledge the challenges that come with data warehousing and regulatory compliance, so you know exactly what you’re getting into and what to be prepared for. 

Complexities around data interoperability

As touched on, data interoperability is vital to ensuring that data can work across specific system departments, and can be transferred when needed. However, not every vendor is compatible with all data exports, and it can be difficult to create a standardized data set. Hiring experts that specialize in data science is a great way to overcome this issue. 

Need for technical expertise

Naturally, dealing with data is a highly specialized area, and it can take quite some time to get your head around, with there being a high probability of encountering costly mistakes if you don’t know what you’re doing. As a result, you need to employ a reliable and experienced IT team that can help support you in accessing and ordering information concerning software. 

Concerns around data security

Your data system must be compliant with HIPAA regulations, and failure to do so could result in fines of up to $1.5 million. Data is highly sensitive and personalized, so it’s important to protect all details and maintain privacy across all operations. This means protecting information from external threats, such as data leaks and hacks.

Final thoughts

Using a data warehouse to store and manage all your healthcare information is absolutely key to ensuring optimized and streamlined processes and procedures. Implementing these systems can save you an abundance of time and money, with automation working to increase efficiency and efficacy when it comes to meeting your patient’s needs, and protecting their information. With the right startup business plan, you can ensure you meet all technology needs, whilst capitalizing on recent healthcare technology trends. It’s a non-negotiable aspect of every successful business, and we hope that this guide has helped solidify your understanding when it comes to its operations and given you a boost when it comes to incorporating technology. 

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Final thoughts

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