Necessity of Analytics in Today’s Healthcare Revenue Cycle

Abstract

Because of the recently growing pressures to improve quality and reduce costs, healthcare organizations are rapidly adopting IT in order to improve their operations and clinical care. As a result, an accumulation of vast amounts of data are becoming available for use. It is important for healthcare to use this data. Strome (2010) states that healthcare analytics is the application of statistical tools and techniques to healthcare-related data in order to study past situations (i.e., operational performance or clinical outcomes) to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical and business processes and performance. With the introduction of healthcare analytical tools, can the healthcare industry take its huge and exponentially growing amounts of data and learn from it? The purpose of this paper is to review the available literature on the use of analytical tools in the healthcare industry with a focus on the revenue cycle. Most literature available to be reviewed is centered around discussions and theories on the use of analytical tools in the industry. A survey of revenue cycle leaders was conducted to determine the prevalence and importance of analytical tools in conjunction with the revenue cycle. This information will be valuable to revenue cycle leaders in determining if others in the industry are adopting these tools and the potential benefits of using analytical tools in their own departments