Features of Healthcare Data Warehousing
Healthcare data warehousing is the act of using a digital repository of organizational and medical data to analyze trends and gain valuable insight. These warehouses can be built to an organization’s unique needs and potentially contain data from electronic medical records, staff data, lab tests and results, and insurance claims.
Data warehouses are beneficial for healthcare organizations as they take unused data and transform it into valuable analytics that offer valuable insights into an organization. An enterprise data warehouse allows organizations to store all their data in a centralized repository, making it easier to access and analyze data. This data can improve the decision-making process, optimize staffing schedules, and improve patient care and outcomes.
Since each healthcare organization has its own unique needs and processes, the data warehouse must be configurable to meet the organization’s needs. Here are some common features of healthcare data warehouses that organizations can put in place to gain the most value.
Data Integration
One of the common features of a healthcare data warehouse is data integration functions. Integrating a large variety of data provides organizations with insight into their operations. Being able to process unstructured data can increase analytical capabilities, like taking data from electronic health records to provide patients with personalized treatment plans.
Security
Since a data warehouse in healthcare manages sensitive patient and organization data, security is a top feature to protect data. Some of these features will be required depending on the regulations the organization must be in compliance with, such as HIPAA or GDPR. Additional data security features that medical organizations could put in place include multi-factor authentication, continuous vulnerability assessments, and data encryption during transmissions.
Performance and Reliability
The performance and reliability of a healthcare data warehouse model will be a priority for the organization’s leadership. Having a tool that can process and analyze real-time data and produce user-friendly dashboards to display the data trends is only beneficial if it has a reliable performance.
In terms of reliability, this can include having an automated backup of an organization’s data in the case that data recovery is needed. When it comes to performance, an example would be having high-performing processing for data queries to provide users with quick access to real-time data.
Data Storage
Having an ample and organized data storage layer is essential to healthcare organizations managing large amounts of medical data. Since organizations will be storing patient data, it’s critical to have protected health information storage that is in compliance with industry regulations. Utilizing data marts to store data based on the department or unit will make it easier to identify and analyze data groups.
Benefits of Healthcare Data Warehousing and Analytics
Organizations can use a clinical data warehouse to gain insight into their operations and performance. Let’s review a couple of the benefits this insight can produce.
Improved Patient Experience
The insight gathered by a data warehouse can improve the patient experience in a variety of ways. One of these includes improved patient outcomes by using business intelligence tools and reports to help healthcare providers identify gaps and complications in the medical care process and implement resolutions.
Organizations can also use machine learning technology to analyze patient records and produce personalized treatment plans based on the patient’s condition and lifestyle, improving the patient’s care and experience.
Optimized Operations Management
Medical organizations can use data analytics to improve their operations to be more streamlined and cost-effective. Organizations can improve their staff management by analyzing workflows and schedules to optimize shifts and staffing numbers.
Another way a data warehouse can improve operations is through data-driven decision-making. This can help organizations make cost-effective decisions when it comes to hiring efforts, facility operations, and patient management.
Healthcare Data Warehouse Integrations
Integrating external technologies into a healthcare data warehouse system allows organizations to extract the highest value from a data warehouse. Healthcare organizations should consider the following integrations to increase the value of using a data warehouse.
Data Lake
Data lakes are repositories used to store structured and unstructured healthcare data. Since they are able to store data without the need to structure it, businesses can gather valuable insight through various types of data analytics. Some of these healthcare analytics include dashboards to get a visual representation of your data and access to real-time data for the most current insights.
BI Software
Business intelligence (BI) software is a tool that processes data to display it in digestible formats, including dashboards, reports, and graphs. This is beneficial to organizations as they can take action on the insights gained from the business intelligence tools to improve operations, optimize staffing workflows, and identify trends in insurance claims.
ML Software
Machine learning (ML) is a type of computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) that uses algorithms and data to learn how humans process information and improve accuracy over time. The healthcare industry is utilizing ML by training models with historical data to provide patients with personalized care, analyze medical images, improve staffing workflows, and predict clinical outcomes.
Steps for Healthcare Data Warehouse Implementation
Now that we have reviewed the functions and features of a healthcare enterprise data warehouse let’s take a look at the required steps to properly implement them.
Planning
The first step to any software implementation project is to plan out every aspect of the solution thoroughly. This can include the intended functions, included features, and any integrations the organization would like to utilize. In this step, it’s essential that the software development company has a solid and complete understanding of the data the healthcare organization would like to analyze and how they would like the data to be displayed.
Design
Once the software development company understands all the requirements and timelines for the project, it’s time for the architecture design. During this step, the software development company will work closely with the healthcare organization to design the architecture of the data warehouse. The architecture design will consider the amount of data being stored, any integrations, and the type of structured and unstructured data being stored.
Development
Once the project is planned out and the architecture of the warehouse is established, the development team can get to work. During this step, the software development company will communicate updates and roadblocks as they work through development.
Deployment & Support
Once the data warehouse is completely developed, it’s time to deploy the solution. Once the data warehouse is live for users, the software development may offer support services. This can include training support, deployment testing efforts, and fixing any defects users identify.
Work with Geneca Today
Are you ready to learn more about how your healthcare organization can utilize a data warehouse? Contact Geneca today for a commitment-free consultation! We have a team of experts on standby, ready to build a data warehouse that meets all your business needs.