News Feature | October 31, 2014

90% Of Executives Say Big Data Is Key

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Big Data And RTLS In healthcare

While the majority of executives believe Big Data is essential for their business, few actually use it for predictive analytics.

Healthcare executives told Accenture and GE in a recent survey that Big Data is key for their organizations. Eighty-nine percent say companies that do not adopt a Big Data analytics strategy in the next year risk losing market share and momentum.

More than half of healthcare executives participating in the survey believe in the power of analytics to produce quicker diagnoses with higher levels of confidence. Furthermore:

  • 56 percent think Big Data can reduce patient wait times and length of stay
  • 60 percent are hopeful that they can generate better clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction scores
  • 66 percent of respondents with an interest in operational efficiency believe that they can produce higher profits using Big Data analytics as a primary tool

Over half of organizations plan to devote 10-30 percent of their overall technology budgets to Big Data analytics. One in three organizations may believe that they are already head and shoulders above their peers in the analytics department, but Health IT Analytics says even the leaders in the field are still worried about losing patient market share to competitors who are moving more quickly.

According to the survey, providers have fears about Big Data as well:

  • 75 percent of organizations fear losing scarce qualified talent to competitors among their top three analytics challenges
  • 70 percent expressed concerns that their financial performance would cause them to lose the competitive edge in their marketplace
  • 66 percent worried that other providers would make faster gains in clinical quality and satisfaction, sapping picky customers away from organizations with a lesser reputation
  • 60 percent believe they may have difficulty achieving the level of systems interoperability necessary to build a data-driven continuum of care

“There is much more data available to the clinician that requires additional expertise and having the right people with the right skills to interpret the data - biostatistics, epidemiology, health informaticists, other health professional clinicians, and so forth,” said Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH, President and CEO of West Virginia United Health System. “Caring for patients is now a team activity, and learning to work in teams is an important skill for physicians to acquire.”