How Data and Analytics Help You Understand Bariatric Patients Better

Two surgeons analyze their latest bariatric surgery data

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Learn how to harness your bariatric surgery data to better understand your patients and provide outstanding care.

In the last decade, global data grew from 1.2 trillion to 59 trillion gigabytes. That data is being captured and analyzed in countless ways, from what shows Netflix recommends to the creation of self-driving cars. In healthcare, data and analytics hold significant potential to help you improve the bariatric patient journey. From improved outcomes to more efficient scheduling, a strong data strategy is the key to unlocking all the value your data holds.

See what your data can do for you.

Key Takeaways

  • Data analytics turns vast amounts of healthcare data into useful and actionable insights.
  • In healthcare, data and analytics can improve healthcare outcomes and reduce costs.
  • The most effective data analytics pulls data from a variety of sources.
  • Five different types of analytics work together to provide answers and predict outcomes.
  • A strong data strategy is essential for successfully implementing data and analytics in your practice.

What is Data and Analytics?

Data and analytics (commonly referred to as D&A) is the use of mathematical and statistical analysis of data to produce meaningful insights. Data analytics continues to grow in importance across industries, even healthcare..

One key use of data and analytics in healthcare is to help streamline the patient experience. They offer the ability to capture, store, and analyze large amounts of data in a variety of actionable formats to be used by hospitals, doctors, surgeons, program directors, and other healthcare professionals to gain a better understanding of their patients,their health status, and their progress. This allows healthcare professionals to provide a better experience for their patients while also providing a clearer picture of their overall health to help improve their health outcomes. 

Why is Data and Analytics So Important in Healthcare?

Briefly stated, better data means better healthcare at a lower cost.

Successfully implemented data and analytics results in an improved patient experience, more efficient operations in all areas of your surgical practice, and better health outcomes overall. Analyzing bariatric surgery data provides key insights to your patients, and by helping you to thoroughly understand your patients, data and analytics unlock potential improvements throughout your bariatric practice.

Data and analytics help improve and grow your practice by:

    • Flagging potential issues and complications early to help you intervene before they become problematic. This is an incredibly impactful way to improve the health outcomes of your patients and reduce costs caused by complications. 
    • Helping you learn from the past to capitalize on successful strategies and prevent the same mistakes from occurring repeatedly.
    • Providing better healthcare access to patients in remote locations. For example, a patient who had to travel far to your surgery might benefit from virtual follow-up visits.
    • Identifying training needs for surgeons and other staff by analyzing patient feedback.
  • Identifying learning needs for patients to help them participate in their care.
  • Improving scheduling efficiency by better understanding the time demands of different tasks.
  • Streamlining in-person visits by having patients complete paperwork online in advance.
6 real-world applications of healthcare data analytics
Source httpsonlinemaryvilleedublogdata analytics in healthcare

Sources of Patient Data

Data analytics is most effective when you bring data together from a variety of sources. The more data that is integrated together and analyzed, the more valuable it becomes.

Sources of patient data include:

  • Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
  • Personal Health Records (PHRs)
  • Electronic Prescription Services (E-prescribing)
  • Patient Portals
  • Master Patient Indexes (MPI)
  • Health-Related Smart Phone Apps
  • Wearables
  • Digital Therapeutics
  • Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs)

These data sets are becoming so large and complex that cloud storage is a necessity.

Types of Healthcare Analytics

Your patient data can be analyzed in four different ways depending on the questions you need to be answered. Each mode of analysis builds on and advances the last.

The four main types of analytics: diagnostic, descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive
Source httpswwwanalyticsinsightnetfour types of business analytics to know

1. Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive analytics provides an answer to the important question of “what happened?” This type of analytics is used to search through existing sets of data to discover patterns and gain insight into the past. Descriptive analytics can help you measure your surgery practice’s performance against key performance indicators and be used to develop models, like a return on investment (ROI) on key initiatives and purchases.

2. Diagnostic Analytics

Descriptive analytics answer the question “why did it happen?” This is a useful supplement to descriptive analytics, as it takes what you know happened and delves deeper in search of the underlying cause(s). Statistical techniques find trends and relationships to explain changes in your key performance metrics and more.

3. Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics answer the question “what could happen next?” This mode takes past and current data to make predictions about the future. This is sometimes referred to as advanced analytics and makes use of neural networks, decision trees, regression, and other sophisticated artificial intelligence to help you understand what could occur next. 

4. Prescriptive Analytics

Prescriptive analytics answers the question “what should we do?” This type of analytics takes predictions and uses machine learning to determine the best path forward or formidable action plan. This allows you to make informed decisions based on the likelihood of different outcomes.

Pulling it All Together with Adaptive Analytics

Adaptive analytics takes all the above and applies it in real-time. This helps guide surgeons in making better decisions in the moment by putting the power of AI at their fingertips.

In the video below, data analyst Anna Leach talks more about combining data analytics with in-person interactions for better overall implementation.

Building a Successful Data Strategy

The key to successfully leveraging your data to achieve better outcomes is building a solid data strategy.

A good data strategy should:

  • Define clinical and operational questions or objectives that you want to answer and address.
  • Identify what data assets you already have, and what you will need to acquire.
  • Plan how to securely store that data in compliance with HIPAA standards, and who will govern it (i.e. manage its use and prevent misuse).
  • Identify how the data will be made accessible and actionable throughout your practice. 

Having a strong data strategy sets you up for success by ensuring you are investing your time and resources into the data collection and analysis that will help your practice the most.

Wellbe’s Data and Analytics Can Help You Understand Patients Better

Wellbe provides bariatric surgeons and other healthcare specialties with the latest data and analytics in your operations to help you understand your patients better and grow your practice.

Contact us today to learn more about Wellbe’s data and analytics solutions.