Healthcare analytics are essential for organizations to thrive in the new healthcare environment. Using analytics, systems can evaluate efficiency, effectiveness, and find improvement opportunities. There are two principal approaches: outsourcing the analytics function to benchmarking companies and providers of software-as-a-service; and doing analytics in-house with a system’s own data warehouse. The pros of outsourcing include gaining benchmarking access to how health system peers are performing. The cons to outsourcing include focusing too much high-level outcomes with no insight in how to effect change. The pros of in-house analytics include having quick access to fine-grained details of the data and being able to include clinicians in the implementation and development of the analytics process. A con is that in-house analytics can require significant resources – an investment in the right personnel and right technology.

1. Outsourced vs. In-house
Healthcare Analytics:
Pros and Cons
— Brian Ellison
Roopa Foulger

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Outsourcing vs. In-House Analytics
Healthcare is facing the
inevitable question:
How to improve quality
while reducing costs?
Most organizations
recognize that part of the
answer lies in using
analytics to find
improvement opportunities.
There are two principle
approaches to analytics:
Outsourcing Analytics
Tackling Analytics In-house

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Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Analytics
Pros:
This approach delivers outcome
metrics to be a valuable
performance snapshot to
executives.
Outsourced analytics can also
provide high-level insights into
needed improvements.
Also allows a quick comparison
to industry peers.

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Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Analytics
Cons:
Does not provide insight on how
to change outcomes.
Can’t always trust data’s validity
and the clinicians involved may
not trust data validated outside
their own cross-functional team
of data architects and analysts.

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Pros and Cons of In-House Analytics
Pros:
Using an EDW in-house allows
health systems to improve, rather
than just report on, performance.
Analysts are able to control and
track everything that happens to
the data, from the source to the
final output which allows logical
data to identify a cohort of
patients, among other significant
groupings.

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Pros and Cons of In-House Analytics
Cons:
The most frequently mentioned
disadvantage of the in-house
analytics approach is that it
requires significant resources.
It requires investment in
technology and personnel.
Another drawback is the focus
on internal improvement with
little comparison the peers.

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Looking Backward versus Moving Forward
7
Managing by results is like looking
in the rear-view mirror.”
—W. Edwards Deming
Relying on outsourced analytics
consisting only of outcomes data
is much like driving forward
looking in the rear-view mirror.
Forward moving improvement
comes by using an in-house
EDW and analytics to pinpoint
needs and take the right action.

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More about this topic
The Key to Successfully Rolling Out Improvement Initiatives
Tom Burton, Co-founder and Senior Vice President of Product Development
Cut Through the Confusion: The 5 Types of Healthcare Analytics Solutions
Paul Horstmeier, Senior Vice President
Why Databases and EMRs Don’t Make the Cut on Their Own
David Burton, MD, Senior Vice President and Former Executive Chairman
How to Unlock the Analytic Value of Your EHR
Dan Burton, CEO. John Haughom, Senior Advisor
The Three Systems Critical to Healthcare Analytics Success
Eric Just, Vice President of Technology
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
Outsourced vs. In-house Healthcare Analytics: Pros and Cons

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– John Haughom, MD, Senior Advisor, Health Catalyst

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Brian Eliason brings more than 10 years of Healthcare IT experience to Health
Catalyst, specializing in data warehousing and data architecture. His work has been
presented at HDWA and AMIA. Prior to coming to Catalyst, Mr. Eliason was the
technical lead at The Children's Hospital at Denver with experience using I2B2.
Previously, he was a senior data architect for Intermountain Healthcare, working closely
with the disease management and care management groups. Additionally, he helped
Intermountain bridge clinical programs with the payer-arm, Select Health. Mr. Eliason holds an MS in
business information systems from Utah State University and a BS from Utah Valley University.