On Sept. 13, HealthLeaders Magazine published an excellent article with interviews from several healthcare visionaries, entitled, “Metrics that Matter”. The comments in the article subtly underscored some very important principles and patterns affecting healthcare analytics and data warehousing, especially the manner in which analytics evolves within the culture of an organization. It is critically important […]
Lincoln, Leadership And The Power Of Pure Motives
Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam where fellow countryman killed 23,000 Americans in less than two days. Up to this point, Lincoln’s decision-making motives in the war focused primarily on retaining the Union — fighting secessionists — not so much about the abolition of slavery. He didn’t want to be known […]
Hacking the US Nuclear Conferencing System
On my LinkedIn profile, there’s a blurb in my bio that generates some fun conversations. That blurb is: “In 1988, he hacked into the national nuclear warning system from a public pay phone.” At the request of several friends and colleagues, here’s the story behind that blurb… From 1983-1991, I was an information systems officer […]
A Suggestion About Predictive Analytics
Suggestive Analytics. The power of suggestion meets the power of data. But, before we talk about that, let’s contrast it to the buzz phrase of the day — Predictive Analytics. I’d like to have a dime for every white paper, blog, journal article and marketing brochure I’ve seen in the past six months that cheer […]
Facebook And CIOs: Walking The Line
Social media, especially Facebook, is, among other things, a life experiment for me as an IT professional and “corporate executive.” In particular, I’m insatiably curious about the role that social media technology plays in transparency — breaking down the barriers and often hypocritical behaviors between personal and professional lives that allow for university football coaches […]
Time To Rethink EMR Design And User Interface
There’s a great new article in the March 2012 issue of The American Journal for Managed Care, “IT-Enabled Systems Engineering Approach to Monitoring and Reducing ADEs.” You can find it here. The point I’m trying to make in this blog, by drawing attention to this article, is this: it’s time for EMR vendors to rethink […]
Breaking Down Healthcare’s Complex Pricing System
Below is a Facebook message between a friend and me in which my friend asks for clarification about his hospital bills. Healthcare CIOs are in a unique position to improve this terrible state of confusion and economic waste that exists in healthcare. We understand the business and we understand the data of healthcare; and revealing […]
A Patient Walks Into A Restaurant …
For the last couple of years, I’ve been using this metaphor to highlight the ridiculous nature of healthcare and particularly, healthcare billing — the point being, we tolerate ridiculous behaviors and processes in healthcare that we would never tolerate in the rest of our lives, yet we keep building healthcare software that supports the insanity. […]
Three Parts Chance, One Part Planning
This blog is mostly intended for the younger professionals whose careers are just beginning, but older geezers (like me) might also find it interesting, as they face the challenge of honoring their aging parents while maintaining their career. The key messages are: (1) Career paths and opportunities are three parts chance, one part planning and […]
Start Your Data Modeling With The End In Mind
Data modeling is the single greatest cause of long term failure and under-performance in data warehousing and business intelligence systems across all industries. It is compounded as a problem in healthcare due to the complexity of the data and the analytic environment. Errors in data modeling strategy gestate slowly, usually emerging 2-3 years after go-live when […]