Published on 08-Mar-2012
"Having a sophisticated, enterprise-level business analytics platform with common metadata has been critical not only to support our rapid growth and explosive demands, but also to enable us to respond quickly to the upcoming changes in health care." - Jeff Guevin, Manager of BI Administration, Martin’s Point Health Care
Customer:
Martin’s Point Health Care
Industry:
Healthcare
Deployment country:
United States
Solution:
Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Optimizing IT
Smarter Planet:
Smarter Healthcare
Overview
Martin’s Point is a progressive, not-for-profit health care organization committed to providing the best possible health care experience. It cares for its communities in two ways: by providing primary care and select specialty services to patients in Maine and New Hampshire, and through serving members in three health insurance plans throughout New England.
Business need:
Martin’s Point Health Care operates in both the health care delivery and health plan provision sectors, and operates some onsite pharmacies. The organization had experienced rapid growth, which generated increasingly complex information demands in terms of metrics, reporting and analysis. A complex systems landscape, with seven enterprise applications and 20 separate databases across 13 different business units created significant effort to collect and consolidate information, including some manual processes for reporting.
Solution:
To stay on the leading edge and make the health care system more efficient and effective, Martin’s Point decided to create a state-of-the-art solution by building on its investment in Business Analytics to enhance all aspects of metrics, reporting, dashboards, and analysis and also creating a data warehouse. To ensure that the solution would be adopted most effectively across the organization, Martin’s Point established a central Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) in the informatics department, a far-sighted decision that delivered immediate ROI.
Results:
A Nucleus Research ROI study reveals that the creation of the Martin’s Point BICC has resulted in tangible ROI results of 1,195 percent per year, leading to full return within just one month, and total benefits of more than $1 million.
Benefits:
Dramatically accelerated the time to value. Reports that used to take two weeks to assemble can be generated in seconds with a few mouse clicks. Reduced report-building workload for the BICC team by 20 percent by empowering users to perform analyses themselves. Consistent application of data presentation standards accelerated project scoping and information assimilation. Improved the quality of analysis throughout the organization – helping the business find the right answers, not just the quick answers.
Case Study
Strategy
Martin’s Point Health Care operates in both the health care delivery and health plan provision sectors, and operates some onsite pharmacies. The organization had experienced rapid growth, which generated increasingly complex information demands in terms of metrics, reporting and analysis. A complex systems landscape, with seven enterprise applications and 20 separate databases across 13 different business units created significant effort to collect and consolidate information, including some manual processes for reporting. To support better decision making across the enterprise, Martin’s Point wanted to drastically accelerate access to more accurate information. For example, it wanted to provide health plan managers with greater insight into key metrics such as per-patient, per-month costs, while also helping clinical managers monitor patients’ treatments and assess their outcomes more effectively. Achieving this went beyond a technology-only solution – it required a strategic shift in the way reporting was organized and perceived within the organization.
Focus on Business Impact
To stay on the leading edge and make the health care system more efficient and effective, Martin’s Point decided to create a state-of-the-art solution by building on its investment in Business Analytics to enhance all aspects of metrics, reporting, dashboards, and analysis and also creating a data warehouse. To ensure that the solution would be adopted most effectively across the organization, Martin’s Point established a central Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) in the informatics department, a far-sighted decision that delivered immediate ROI and, ultimately, ensured that the solution would have a significant impact on the business. The BICC is divided into three closely aligned teams – architecture, BI administration and reporting – that work both independently and in collaboration. The structure encourages a functional approach to solving analytics-related challenges, which focuses on how to ensure that a given project will deliver value to the business, in addition to the best technical approach. As a continuing commitment to the contribution of analytics, a BI Certification program has been created to increase consistency and sophistication in the analyst community and advance information maturity.
Business Value Outcomes
A Nucleus Research ROI study reveals that the creation of the Martin’s Point BICC has resulted in tangible ROI results of 1,195 percent per year, leading to full return within just one month, and total benefits of more than $1 million.
Deeper Insight
The direct benefits calculated included avoidance of consulting fees and additions to headcount in the BICC. The indirect benefits consisted of improved productivity for business users, who spend less time locating, identifying and manipulating data in order to complete their analyses.
- Reduced reporting costs – aggressive deployment of the analytic solutions, high business adoption and self-service capabilities have reduced the team’s report-building load by 20 percent.
The BICC delivers hundreds of successful projects each year that provide insight into operations and improve key performance metrics. Some key examples include:
- Health plan management – health plan managers can analyze per-patient, per-month costs and other key metrics. A new ‘outlier report’ helps to assess insurance claims against budgets and highlights significant variances. This helps to identify root causes, leading to better management.
- Clinical practice – clinicians can ensure that each patient receives the treatments they need. For example, a report highlights patients with chronic conditions who need to come in for tests. Where electronic medical records are available, test results can also be analyzed to assess the effectiveness of treatment and improve patient outcomes.
- Within the BICC – if a user requires additional technical assistance, the system automatically prompts the BICC to intervene with support or additional training. This proactive approach drives adoption of analytics, as users get the support they need without even having to ask.
Solution Review
Since 2003, Martin’s Point has tripled in size and the demand for reporting has grown tenfold since the creation of the BICC as more business areas have embraced the potential of analytics. The informatics department has delivered hundreds of projects, and adoption spans the organization from the executives, across the health plans, pharmacies, and physician practices, and the enabling departments in finance, marketing, human resources, IT, and so on. Information delivery has been streamlined and accelerated so dramatically that reports that would once have taken up to two weeks to generate can now be created within a few seconds and a couple of mouse clicks.
The BICC supports the organization through three major approaches. The first spans solutions across the full spectrum of analytic capabilities and information delivery styles with real-time dashboards, scorecards and key performance metrics, event-based alerts and triggers, reporting, drill through, OLAP and Excel-based analysis, sophisticated charting, and portal access. The BICC has also created an infrastructure that can address the hundreds of analysis requests that arise in a complex, rapidly expanding organization. Finally, operational uses include IT monitoring and feeding third party applications.
The original structure and investment in the BICC have been validated, and it remains divided into three closely aligned teams covering architecture, BI administration, and reporting. The architecture team addresses all of the data sources and works closely with IT. The BI administration team handles upgrades, licensing, more complex development, and continuous R&D to best leverage the technology. The reporting team primarily interacts with the business users to create dashboards, scorecards, reporting, and analyses. The teams work independently but also in collaboration to deliver the best solutions for the organization. As a result, business users can now generate the reports they need, which has reduced the BICC’s report building workload by 20 percent and expanded the scale of report development across the organization.
As a continuing commitment to the contribution of analytics, a BI certification program has been created to increase consistency and sophistication in the analyst community and advance information maturity. The certification program is divided into three modules that cover BI and informatics, the data warehouse subject areas, and, finally, business analytics tools and quality assurance.
About Nucleus Research
Nucleus Research provides investigative, case-based technology research and advisory services. Nucleus analysts investigate hundreds of deployments every year to deliver unique insight into the measurable value of technology. Founded in 2000, Nucleus Research is headquartered in Boston MA and provides services worldwide.
About IBM Business Analytics
IBM Business Analytics software delivers actionable insights decision-makers need to achieve better business performance. IBM offers a comprehensive, unified portfolio of business intelligence, predictive and advanced analytics, financial performance and strategy management, governance, risk and compliance and analytic applications. With IBM software, companies can spot trends, patterns and anomalies, compare “what if” scenarios, predict potential threats and opportunities, identify and manage key business risks and plan, budget and forecast resources. With these deep analytic capabilities our customers around the world can better understand, anticipate and shape business outcomes.
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Software:
Cognos Business Intelligence, Cognos PowerPlay
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012 IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 Produced in the United States of America February 2012 IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Cognos, PowerPlay and TM1 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates. The client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions. It is the user’s responsibility to evaluate and verify the operation of any other products or programs with IBM products and programs. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.