In this blog series on healthcare analytics myths, we’ve been busting some common myths that threaten to derail your business intelligence (BI) buying journey. Our first post focused on why you don’t need a data warehouse, and the second focused on why the analytics in your EHR might not cut it.
This third myth has to do with planning your business intelligence implementation and the belief that you need to know the exact end result you want before you even get underway with your project. Truth is, that’s just a myth, and BI often works better when you adopt some flexibility into your planning process.
“I need to know all my healthcare analytics goals at the outset”
While we often think we need to have our business intelligence implementations all planned out from the beginning, the truth is that projects and goals change – and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
When you adopt a grand plan at the beginning of a project and try to build everything to those goals and specifications, you can be setting yourself up for disappointment. There is often a long timeline involved, meaning a long time to see any ROI. And by the time everything is up and running, often your business or your department goals have changed. With this mind frame, it’s easy to see the truth behind the Gartner estimate that up to 80% of “build it and they will come” healthcare data warehouse implementations fail.
What does work?
BI implementation, especially at the enterprise level, works best when it functions more like Agile software development. You start with small projects and quickly get them up and running. You observe what works and what doesn’t work, learning from each step in the process. You then refine your goals and objectives and how you got there, and celebrate “quick wins” along the way.
This “quick win” mindset is important (and we’ve written about it before) because it provides your organization with momentum and confidence that it has invested its dollars wisely. It also helps drive improvement and a faster ROI.
To learn more about this myth, download our white paper, “5 Healthcare Analytics Myths Busted!” You can also catch up with the other posts in this blog series.
Read more:
- Myth #1: I Need a Data Warehouse
- Myth #2: I Can Use the Analytics in My EHR
- Myth #3: I Need to Know All My Goals at the Outset
Ready for a test drive of our healthcare analytics software?
Kathy started her career in television news writing and producing. She then worked at a public relations agency and as a freelance writer before joining Dimensional Insight in 2013.
Kathy has presented at several events in both healthcare and wine & spirits, including the Healthcare Innovation Summit, the Healthcare IT Marketing & PR Conference (HITMC), and the WSWA Women’s Leadership Council (WLC) Conference. Kathy is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and a member of Women of the Vine & Spirits.
She is also host of the Smarter Healthcare Podcast (www.smarthcpodcast.com) and is a member of the Forbes Communications Council.
Kathy holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Boston University.
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