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Health system spending on analytics aligns with reported success in analytics, and respondents agree that analytics investment is essential for value-based care (VBC), according to a survey from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
However, many organizations still lack a clear strategy, an effective data governance model and effective budgeting models, the study indicated.
The survey targeted CIOs, chief medical informatics officers (CMIOs) and senior technology leaders in health systems, academic medical centers (AMCs), and large (revenue greater than $500 million) individual hospitals.
Fewer than half of survey respondents reported having a clear, integrated analytics strategy, while about one in three reported they do not know their organization’s total spending on analytics.
More than half identified population health analytics as the top investment focus, and more than 60 percent reported they will invest in advanced analytics capabilities for clinical and population health functions.
According to more than 75 percent of survey respondents, clinical outcomes, population health, and cost efficiencies are top drivers of analytics investments today, and respondents expect this trend to continue over the next three years.
While financial-management analytics have been a priority for health systems in the past, respondents indicated that population health and clinical analytics will become higher priorities in the next year.
Top capabilities that organizations plan to add in the coming three years and are targeting for additional investments include business intelligence and advanced analytics.
Health systems using analytics for more mature applications, such as advanced analytics and forecasting, reported greater success with analytics for their business function.
Culture, fragmented ownership, and access to skilled resources are the top challenges health systems face with analytics adoption, with access to data the least-influential barrier, although data quality is a barrier reported by nearly half of the survey respondents.
For smaller organizations (those with revenues of $500 million to $1 billion), access to skilled resources and access to funding for enterprise analytics continue to be significant barriers.
Based on the survey results, it appears that a relationship exists between the maturity of health system analytics programs and success with analytics, the report noted.
Conversely, organizations that do not have an enterprise-level analytics strategy, structured data-governance model, and coordinated analytics investments are less likely to achieve the same level of success with analytics.
The report concluded that many health systems have yet to take advantage of the capabilities that analytics can bring to meet their enterprise objectives, and warned that organizations will need more sophisticated tools and capabilities to be able to integrate, analyze and leverage their data.