Dr. Graham Hughes, chief medical offcer for the Center for Health, Analytics and Insights (CHAI) think tank at SAS, says the outcome of today’s election will not affect the importance of analytics to the healthcare industry.

Writing in a blog, Hughes noted that the election could decide the fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – or what is generally known as Obamacare. 

“With all that said, and I know I’ll probably regret this, I’m going to make a prediction,” he wrote. “I’ll bet that whatever the outcome of this election, if we look at what needs to be done to improve healthcare, the following analytic imperatives will still be as relevant by the end of the year as they are now.”

He cites five “imperatives” that won’t change:

  • Simplify data integration across the extended enterprise.
  • Data is the essential lifeblood that enables deeper business insights and the foundation on which to begin to design and build all subsequent strategies.
  • Understand & manage financial risks and incentives.
  • As incentives change in the health care industry, so will behavior. The move from pay-for volume to pay-for-value will require organizations to both predict and measure the value they deliver.
  • Proactively improve care quality and outcomes.
  • Tracking what happened in the past is no longer good enough. We now need to predict quality issues before they occur so that we can intervene early and effectively.
  • Drive greater efficiency of care delivery.
  • Inappropriate levels of variation in health care account for up to 40% of all healthcare costs. Avoidable waste needs to be tracked rigorously if it is to be reduced.
  • Engage patients as unique individuals.
  • Patient-centered health care means just that – adapting health care to fit the patient’s needs and lifestyle rather than expecting the patient to adapt to the provider’s needs.

“We may not know whether these specific predictions are correct for another month or so, but my sense is that they are essential elements to any rational healthcare system, whether in the US or in any other first world country,” Hughes added. “Data volumes don’t get smaller, fee for service won’t suddenly be the next best thing and understanding and engaging patients in their own health and healthcare isn’t a passing fad.

“Analytics are here to stay and in the coming years it won’t be good enough to focus on reporting what’s happened in the past, the healthcare system of the future will focus on early intervention though the proactive use of data for prediction and optimization.”

[SAS ARCHIVE: Check out 10 years of SAS stories as reported in WRAL Tech Wire.]