by Kathy Sucich | Apr 6, 2020 | Healthcare
For the past few weeks, hospital intensive care units (ICUs) have been at the forefront of conversations surrounding hospital readiness and capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s critical for hospital administrators to understand capacity and resources in order to provide high-quality care to patients.
ICUs have a unique set of challenges due to the acuity of patients, the types of resources needed (such as ventilators), and higher per-patient levels of staffing and necessary specializations. An analytics platform can help give insights into these challenges. Let’s take a look.
(more…)
by Alison Nicoli | Apr 2, 2020 | All, Culture
By now I am sure you’ve heard the term “social distancing” maybe once, twice, or every time you’ve clicked on the television over the past few weeks. Although this truly is critical, you might find yourself thinking, is this the only action I can take?
Right now, the entire world wants the same thing — to kick this virus to the curb and return to normal life as soon as possible. Coming together and helping out any way that you can while practicing safe habits that are recommended by the CDC is essential to fighting COVID-19. Here are 5 ways you might be able to lend an extra hand and stay positive during this health crisis. (more…)
by Parker Jones | Mar 31, 2020 | All, General BI
Every business organization, regardless of its size, commercial sector, or number of employees, can benefit from properly organized and coordinated data. It’s no secret that access to reliable data can be leveraged to improve efficiency, simplify the decision-making process, and identify obstacles that are getting in the way of success.
However, not every company has a single, unified data tool that can organize and analyze data. According to the tenth anniversary edition of Dresner Advisory Services’ Wisdom of Crowds® Business Intelligence Market Study, more than half of the businesses surveyed expressed their intention to raise their business intelligence budgets in 2020.
Adopting a holistic data management tool can dramatically improve a company’s performance, but only if it is implemented in the right way. In her recent white paper for Dimensional Insight, Jennifer Bresnick explores four of the major challenges that companies usually face when it comes to business intelligence, and how best to overcome them. (more…)
by Jennifer Bresnick | Mar 30, 2020 | Healthcare
Healthcare organizations looking to cut costs and improve patient care are increasingly exploring how the conditions in which people live and work contribute to long-term outcomes.
Research now indicates that the social determinants of health (SDOHs), such as housing stability, access to transportation, and psycho-social safety, have an outsized impact on a patient’s ability to engage with the healthcare system and follow treatment plans for chronic and acute conditions.
Yet healthcare systems are still struggling to understand their patients’ challenges and how to connect individuals with the support they need. (more…)
by Kathy Sucich | Mar 26, 2020 | Healthcare, Product News
As healthcare providers mobilize in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, their data is an important guide in helping them understand where their resources are being used and what their capacity is as new patients come in.
In order to help healthcare providers as they try to gain insight into their operations and capacity, Dimensional Insight is now offering a COVID-19 analytics toolkit. Here are some of the details. (more…)
by Kathy Sucich | Mar 25, 2020 | Healthcare
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers don’t want patients to come into the hospital or go to their doctor’s office unless critically necessary. That means telemedicine is quickly soaring in popularity. Healthcare providers are able to see patients remotely and determine whether they need to be seen in person or if they can treat themselves at home with rest and meds.
Use of telehealth has grown rapidly over the last several years, more than doubling in use since 2010, according to the American Hospital Association. (35% of hospitals used telehealth in 2010 vs. 76% in 2017 – the last year for which data is available.) However, that use within hospitals is not necessarily widespread and there are still hurdles to overcome when deploying telehealth. In this blog post, we’ll examine the current telehealth landscape and how healthcare analytics can help providers in their telehealth efforts. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Mar 24, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
While browsing the latest spring styles in a store, the hottest new accessory is a glass of champagne.
Stores such as Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, Target, and Whole Foods are partnering up with wine and spirits brands to offer customers a glass of wine or even a cocktail in the hopes of increasing a customer’s total spending. For customers, the shopping experience can feel more luxurious or fun with a drink.
“From a marketing perspective, it’s genius,” Kate Carey, a professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown University told The Washington Post. “Draw people in [with] the novel pairing of drinking alcohol while shopping, and then lower their inhibitions as you are presenting them with things to buy.” (more…)
by Kathy Sucich | Mar 19, 2020 | Healthcare
There’s been a lot of discussion over the last several months in the healthcare world about social determinants of health – or SDOH. These are factors that relate to a person’s physical environment and social circumstances that impact their well-being.
Social determinants of health account for up to 80% of the impact of an individual’s health, but that data accounts for only about 20% of the information collected in a healthcare setting. That’s why providers are now looking for ways to better incorporate SDOH into population health datasets. There are some easy ways to do so – let’s examine. (more…)
by Kathy Sucich | Mar 17, 2020 | Healthcare
In a health crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, there’s a lot that feels uncontrollable. And rightfully so. But for healthcare providers and their institutions that are treating COVID-19 patients, there are some steps that can be taken to get a better handle on the situation before them.
An organization’s data is a powerful tool that can be used to better understand patient flow and census – and this is especially valuable during a pandemic. How can you harness that data and present it in an accessible way for your entire care team? Here are some tips for what you should include on your COVID-19 dashboard. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Mar 17, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is affecting every industry, and tanking the global economy as a whole. Even in the wine and spirits world, it’s causing profit loss.
Distilleries have canceled tours, whiskey trading is experiencing losses of more than 200 million, bars in Asia are quiet, and auction houses are halting selling their top whiskeys.
According to the World Health Organization, there are 110,029 Coronavirus cases in 105 countries, with 3,817 deaths, as of March 9. Internationally, government officials are encouraging citizens to self-quarantine. (more…)
by John Sucich | Mar 12, 2020 | Healthcare
There is no more important time for health organizations to use all of the data available to them than in a health crisis. The data can help health officials stay informed, but it can also help inform a response – where and how to intervene. As a result, the care that is being provided can improve and lives can be saved.
The way that data is presented can also make a difference. Many different organizations are using visualizations of the current coronavirus that allow the data be viewed and understood more easily in order to improve the response. Here are some of the data visualizations of the COVID-19 pandemic that can help everyone stay informed, from those worried about whether the virus will affect them to the health officials trying to stop it. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Mar 3, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
States like Texas are slowly becoming award-winning locations for winemaking. While one might associate the Lone Star State with tumbleweeds and dry weather, winemakers are using data to learn lessons that help make hardier vintages there.
Technology helps aspiring winemakers to plant their vines in new places across the United States.
States such as Michigan have seen their wine industry grow 34% in the past five years, with an economic impact on the state of over $4.9 billion.
There’s a lot of work to be done in these regions when unexpected weather changes such as frost can come at any minute. Technology can help predict the changes, which lowers labor costs, and potentially saves the wines from disaster. (more…)
by Lindsey Berke | Mar 2, 2020 | Healthcare
Big data is at the forefront of many industries worldwide, and the healthcare industry is no exception. In the healthcare industry, big data is available in massive amounts, containing the information of human health conditions and activities, and is collected through multiple resources like electronic health records, medical image analysis, wearables and medical devices, and more. As medicine and technology become more advanced, so do the abilities of big data. Here we take a look at some of the top advantages that big data has brought to the healthcare industry. (more…)
by John Sucich | Feb 27, 2020 | General BI
A common theme for organizations that successfully use data is the fact that everyone in the organization is on board with the approach to data. This can be difficult when faced with employees who might be set in their ways or who think they don’t have a handle on the data.
But if your organization is committed to using analytics, these are hurdles that need to be overcome. Here are five ways that you can improve data literacy in your organization. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Feb 25, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
When you think of a winery, you might envision acres of rolling green hills filled with rows upon rows of grape vines.
But as more millennials choose to live in cities long-term, wineries are now opening in old warehouses and small blacktop spaces. Known as urban wineries, they are attracting city dwellers and even tourists to come drink their wine. Urban wineries use grapes from any number of different off-site vineyards.
Around 2000 the first Urban wineries started to open, despite rising rent costs, because of customer demand for ambiance and good wine — without having to travel to wine country. The main difference between more rural vineyards in traditional wine-country regions and the urban wineries, is that the grapes are grown and the wine is made off-site. (more…)
by Kathy Sucich | Feb 24, 2020 | Product News
HIMSS20 is just two short weeks away, with nearly 45,000 people expected to descend on Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center to learn about the latest in healthcare information technology.
We are busy prepping for the show here at Dimensional Insight (we’ll be in booth #5259). Here are a few things we are looking forward to at the show. (more…)
by Parker Jones | Feb 20, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
Of all the trends and shakeups in the alcohol industry over the past few years, none have been as dramatic or as exciting as the rise of hard seltzers. A few years ago they were almost unheard of, but then, seemingly overnight, they became cultural mainstays and a dominant force in the alcoholic beverage market. In 2019, sales for spiked seltzer shattered expectations by passing the billion-dollar threshold. And their popularity is not slowing down.
There does not appear to be a single, unified reason for this meteoric trend. Rather, everyone seems to have their own reason for being a seltzer fan, whether it’s the taste, the lightness, or the lack of calories. Understanding the causes behind the popularity of seltzer can help us understand whether seltzer is here to stay. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Feb 18, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
Consumers no longer just want their wine to taste good, they want it to tell a story.
Sales of generic wine, priced at less than $9 a bottle, have declined. These affordable options use to appeal mostly to baby boomers, who are now aging out of buying alcohol for health reasons.
“Over the past 50 years, we’ve watched generic wines, which have no story or attachment to a place, fall out of favor with consumers,” the 2020 Silicon Valley Bank report on the state of the wine industry stated. (more…)
by Kayla Matthews | Feb 13, 2020 | General BI
By definition, data visualization is about showing information in a visual format. People often get overwhelmed when they see numbers on a spreadsheet or as text in a document.
Data visualization can do more than just show the information. It can contextualize the data and make it easier to understand. Businesspeople often ask themselves, “Why is data visualization important?” Some may even decide it’s not worth pursuing.
However, when done well, data visualization can unlock benefits that may be hard or impossible to achieve otherwise. Here are five things people can do to maximize the worthiness of data visualization. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Feb 11, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
Your vacation has started and you’re ready for a glass of bubbly to celebrate. The days of waiting for a bartender to serve you a drink are over. Now, customers can simply walk over to a vending machine.
This vending machine doesn’t serve candy or bags of chips, but personal-sized bottles of champagne. Others disperse bottled beer or canned cocktails.
Customers are willing to pay up for the benefit of shorter lines and something interesting to Instagram. Some are willing to spend as much as $25 for a 200 mL champagne bottle that would be only $11 in a liquor store.
(more…)
by Jennifer Bresnick | Feb 10, 2020 | Healthcare
With the nation’s healthcare spending projected to top $6 trillion by 2027, regulators and payers are turning to value-based care strategies to curb unnecessary costs while nudging the United States up the list of countries with high-quality patient outcomes.
Value-based care models require healthcare providers to take accountability for the spending and outcomes of a defined population of attributed beneficiaries. Participants must meet challenging financial and clinical targets in order to gain incentives or avoid negative payment adjustments.
The rapid adoption of value-based care models has put pressure on healthcare organizations to enhance their visibility into the challenges and utilization patterns of their attributed populations in order to stay ahead of avoidable spending.
For that, they need data analytics. (more…)
by Lindsey Berke | Feb 6, 2020 | General BI
Every single day, a variety of issues from around the world appear on the news, on social media, and in our day-to-day conversations. But there is one particular issue that has recently been put into the spotlight: Climate change.
While the dangers of climate change have been an ongoing issue for some time now, people worldwide are fighting to save the environment now more than ever. Data may be able to help work towards a solution. Let’s examine a few ways:
(more…)
by Meredith Galante | Feb 5, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
With the holidays behind consumers and colder temperatures holding steady, alcohol sales typically decrease during the first part of the year.
The holiday months typically account for 30% of all sales of wine and spirits brands, which totals about $250 billion a year. Alcohol purchases peak in November, accounting for 37% of all purchases, according to Bev Spot. Then sales dip at the end of January into February. Come summer, sales increase again.
(more…)
by Parker Jones | Feb 3, 2020 | Healthcare
When people think of applications for virtual reality, video games are usually the first thing that come to mind. While VR gaming may be the most publicized and well-known avenue for this emerging technology, its amazing potential for improving healthcare should not be overlooked. The ability to transport users into immersive virtual worlds can be extremely beneficial for both doctors and the patients they serve.
The endless possibilities of VR are already beginning to attract attention. Currently, the market for virtual and augmented reality tech is valued at over $900 million, a number which is expected to triple in the next three years. (more…)
by Kathy Sucich | Jan 31, 2020 | Healthcare, Product News
KLAS Research released its annual Best in KLAS: Software and Services Report, and I’m thrilled to say that Dimensional Insight was ranked #1 in the healthcare business intelligence/analytics category for a remarkable 7th time in the 10 years that KLAS has given the award in this category.
Not only that, but Dimensional Insight also received “A” grades in six categories that KLAS grades vendors on – culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value. Why is all of this important? Here are a few reasons. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Jan 28, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
If you go to Napa Valley’s Vineyard 29 and walk around the crops, the grapes almost look like they’re in bandages. But the bandage is actually a water-measuring device that sends the results to a computer. The data helps take the guesswork out of assessing whether the grapes are healthy. It makes the wine better and helps produce stronger vintages.
Winemakers are collecting as much data as they can to help create better production. The processes include drones flying in the sky to measure reflectance rates and software to measure the control tanks connected to those water-measuring bandages. (more…)
by Lindsey Berke | Jan 23, 2020 | General BI
3D printing has become a hot topic in recent years, and is being used in a variety of industries such as healthcare, engineering, architecture, and more. However, there is one key tool that 3D printing relies on that could make or break its future: big data.
Without the existence of this advanced data, some of the functions used in 3D printing would not be possible. But how do big data and 3D printing work together? Let’s examine. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Jan 21, 2020 | All, Wine & Spirits
The days of the milkman may be long gone…but the alcohol delivery days are just getting started.
Customers don’t even need to talk to someone to order their favorite Malbec or gin. On-demand apps, such as the booming Drizly, enable consumers to order alcohol delivered to their front door as quickly as within an hour in some major cities. With 80% of all drinking taking place off-premises, according to LEK Insights, getting alcohol from an app is a convenient and easy way to drink at home.
Drizly, which has made $67 million to date, reported a 700% year-over-year sales increase, so if liquor stores and brands are not on the app, they’re missing a huge revenue opportunity. (more…)
by John Sucich | Jan 16, 2020 | General BI
Many economists say we are overdue for a recession. Despite a low unemployment rate and the economy’s longest expansion on record in the United States, experts in America and the World Bank point to trade wars and other globally financially risky situations as reasons for a dim forecast.
Analytics may not be able to tell you exactly when the economy might shift. However, data can certainly help an organization mitigate the impact of a recession by giving you the right information to better target the right market, save money, and increase profits. (more…)
by Meredith Galante | Jan 14, 2020 | Wine & Spirits
The buzzing you hear in a vineyard is not coming from bees or any other insect, it’s the sound of a drone in the sky.
In a world where climate change ravages crops and prices generally keep rising, winemakers are saving money, fighting climate change, and saving time all through the use of drones.
Drones are driving down the cost of pesticides, fertilizer, and labor. They even help save water. Drones analyze the needs and health of crops when climate change is making them more unpredictable. Overall, drones help winemakers save time, and the wine is better because them. (more…)
