Show Me The Money

Every piece of data running through the healthcare system must be collected and aggregated in to meaningful reports. Sometimes healthcare systems have as many as 100 different data sources. Regardless of how many central data repositories (CDRs), aggregated reports provide the options executives choose to populate their dashboards. This is where business and clinical intelligence (BI/CI) comes in to play and decision science. An executive of a public health agency might decide that epidemiology frequency tables should be on the top of their dashboards (especially during a pandemic). Executives want to keep their staff safe and make sure they are reporting the proper numbers to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Another aggregated report might be provider and insurance claims reconciliation percentages. Sometimes insurance companies will not pay claims, for one reason or another, and executives want to know how to resolve these issues. This leads to the next commonly used report: Profit and Loss (P&L). ‘Can our organization pay its bills?’ This question should be at the forefront of every executive’s mind. Otherwise the organization would go out of business. Thus, it is safe to say, if public health executives want to stay in the game, they have to play by the CDC rules, and demand that they are shown the money.