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Transforming Data Noise Into Healthcare Action

Technology Category
  • Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
  • Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
  • Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
  • Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions
  • Business Operation
  • Quality Assurance
Use Cases
  • Predictive Maintenance
  • Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
  • Remote Patient Monitoring
Services
  • Data Science Services
  • System Integration
The Challenge
Contra Costa Health Services, a safety net system for the residents of Contra Costa county, was struggling with data management. Despite having access to a large amount of data, the organization was unable to extract actionable insights from it. The data systems were limited and decision making often had to be gut-based due to lack of evidence. The culture around data awareness was also very different at the time. Data can tell uncomfortable stories, and those stories can ruffle some feathers if an organization has not made the data maturity journey. Things changed significantly in 2010 with the Affordable Care Act and its funding for electronic health records (EHRs). As a result, in 2012 they went from only using electronic systems primarily for billing and claims to using Epic, an enterprise wide EHR solution. With a consolidated system and a great platform, they suddenly had access to massive quantities of data. The EHR data in the data warehouse was supplemented by developing partnerships with social services, county jails, and other community organizations to share data while following prevailing privacy laws.
About The Customer
Contra Costa is a county with a population of about 1.1 million people in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Contra Costa Health Services is the safety net system for the residents of the county. They are somewhat unique in the United States as they are an integrated health department with multiple divisions under one umbrella: hospital and clinics, health plan, behavioral health, public health, health services in detention centers, environmental health, EMS, and even restaurant inspections. The hospital and clinics serve approximately 125,000 patients a year and the health plan has 180,000 members receiving their insurance coverage through them. In every respect, they are here to help their residents live safely, healthily, and well.
The Solution
In 2016, Contra Costa Health Services partnered with Qlik and within three months, published their first dashboard for the pay for performance Medicaid waiver program that is known in California as PRIME. Qlik Sense is so intuitive that the intended users didn’t need assistance getting started. As long as they followed some simple design principles, all new users needed was a tip sheet and a data dictionary to get them going. After the success of that first dashboard, other departments saw the benefit of having these actionable insights. Now they have more than 25 dashboards targeting specific needs, including one for their Whole Person Care Program. This program strives to treat the whole person, believing that addressing the root causes of health issues leads them to deliver better service at a reduced cost. Their first task as analysts was to draw together the data on the social determinants of health— including information on things like access to food and transportation, along with health data—and develop a risk model to identify the top 12,000 most at-risk individuals from the eligible population and get them enrolled in the program. The next step was to create a dashboard for their 150 Whole Person Care case managers.
Operational Impact
  • The organization was able to produce actionable insights using Qlik, which helped them better identify patients that are falling behind on preventative services or have unmet social needs.
  • They were able to understand where the disparities are, leading to better care.
  • The organization was able to be good stewards of public dollars for their county by meeting all their quality targets and not leaving any dollars on the table.
Quantitative Benefit
  • Within three months of partnering with Qlik, they published their first dashboard for the pay for performance Medicaid waiver program.
  • More than 100 providers, quality managers, and operational leaders were using the dashboards without any training.
  • Now they have more than 25 dashboards targeting specific needs.

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