Not only do patients get the most out of their visits to the hospital, but health care centers also boost productivity and lower their expenses when the facilities put predictive analytic tools to work.
Doctors and hospital staff gain better control over operating room schedules, so they can ensure those who need an operation right away get to the front of line without any delay.
The added benefit a tool such as SPSS predictive analytics software is just how much money it can save a health care facility. In fact, Healthcare IT News noted, Atlantic Health System, a nonprofit that operates five hospitals in New Jersey, saved $70 million in labor and operational expenses by putting a predictive analytics system in place.
Controlling costs
While using predictive analytics to schedule the OR saves time and money, so does using the same solutions for creating shifts for nurses and other hospital workers. With implementation of the predictive analytics tools, Atlantic Health and other facilities can track employee productivity and use work schedules from the past to determine which arrangements got the most out of their workers. Therefore, this new system allows hospitals and health care workers – professions known for their long shifts – to better manage overtime for their staff.
"Predictive analytics empowers hospitals to better work with the resources they have."
Improved care
Predictive analytics also gives health care systems more of the information they need to assist patients. Medicare began fining hospitals for patients who returned to their facilities 30 days before being discharged from the same hospital. This put many hospital administrators on alert looking for a way to improve patient care for people likely to return, Modern Healthcare reported.
Advocate Health Care, an 11-hospital system based in Downer's Grove, Illinois, integrated big data and predictive tools for eight of its facilities, scanning and analyzing patient medical history, lab results and demographics to offer more proactive treatments to those in need.
According to Modern Healthcare, the new system is 20 percent more accurate than the previous algorithm Advocate put to use.
With the new analytics tools in place, hospitals are better able to keep patients from falling through the cracks of the system or from neglecting their health. If people fail to pick up their prescriptions or make a follow-up visit, the tools can easily alert doctors and other health care personnel giving them a chance to contact the patients.
Predictive analytics empowers hospitals to better work with the resources they have to address the needs of all their patients as soon as possible.
