This blog posting is the first “profile” article in which HealthcareAnalytics.info interviews a key executive within an innovative company that provides a product or service that enhances the use of information and analytics within healthcare organizations. This posting is not paid for in any way, is not an advertisement, and does not represent an endorsement – it is simply a discussion about one of the many systems that healthcare organizations (HCOs) can use to leverage and increase the value of what may be underutilized and/or difficult to access data within their organization. If you have any suggestions for future profile articles, please email them to me at Trevor@HealthcareAnalytics.info.
In this HealthcareAnalytics.info profile article, we speak with Mr. Paul Constantino, who is the General Manager of the Healthcare Business Unit for Datawatch. I’d like to thank Paul for taking the time to answer our questions and providing information about Datawatch and the solutions they offer.
Please provide us with a brief background of your company
Datawatch Corporation provides visual data discovery software that optimizes any data – regardless of its variety, volume, or velocity – delivering next generation analytics to reveal valuable insights for improving business. Its unique ability to integrate structured, unstructured, and semi-structured sources like reports, PDF files and EDI streams with real-time streaming data into visually rich analytic applications allow users to dynamically discover key factors that impact any operational aspect of their business. This ability to perform visual discovery against any data sets Datawatch apart in the big data and visualization markets. Organizations of every size worldwide use Datawatch, including over 3,000 healthcare customers. Within healthcare, Datawatch brings value to Finance, Revenue Cycle Management, and Clinical Informatics. Datawatch is headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts with offices in New York, London, Munich, Stockholm, Singapore, Sydney and Manila, and with partners and customers in more than 100 countries worldwide.
What is your role within the company? What attracted you to this company?
I am the General Manager of our Healthcare Business Unit for the America’s. My background is in business intelligence and corporate performance management solutions. Whenever we visited a customer in my prior roles, we needed the data to be in an easy format or database before we could demonstrate the value of our solution. I thought Datawatch’s approach to incorporating data from unstructured and semi-structured sources was unique. I did not realize the variety of data formats a business user will receive. After understanding the size of the customer base, the value of the Datawatch solution was very evident. Since joining Datawatch, I can’t tell you how many times a customer will tell me “We can’t live without Datawatch”. It is great testimony to the value we provide.
Please tell us about your product
The Datawatch visual data discovery solutions allow users to collect and make available a variety of data formats, regardless of structure, in real-time. Data can reside in 1) a structured database 2) a semi-structured format such as a PDF or text-based document or report and 3) an unstructured format such as a log file or EDI file. Through an unmatched visual data discovery environment and our information optimization software, users can collect all data – automatically – and then manage, secure and deliver that information to enhance business processes, increase visibility to critical Big Data sources and to improve business intelligence applications by offering broader analytical capabilities. To sum up, we provide the ability to access and analyze all of the data formats a healthcare organization receives in real-time. As part of our strategy, we have developed industry blueprints. These are pre-built solutions to solve a specific business problem. The first healthcare solution is our blueprint for Denial Management Analytics from the 835 EDI file.
What particular needs of your clients does your product meet?
Healthcare organizations use the Datawatch solution within Finance, Revenue Cycle Management, and Clinical Informatics. Typical use cases can include:
- Revenue cycle management analytics (AR and collections data, service line profitability, payer mix, etc)
- 835 remittance – extraction and analysis of data embedded in the 835 EDI file (i.e. denied claims, reason for denials, charge/paid amounts, inpatient/outpatient comparisons, DRG comparisons, etc.).
- Analysis of financial data (labor productivity, employee compensation patterns, overtime costs, etc)
- Case Management metrics
- Clinical reporting for quality initiatives and patient safety
- Operating room efficiency and metric tracking
- Medicare Cost Reporting
Please tell us some success stories of your product
To begin, many of our customers overlap with vendors such as Meditech, Siemens, McKesson, GE Healthcare, Cerner, and Epic. A couple examples of our customer successes are below and include an example for clinical informatics and an example for revenue cycle management. Since I have not received approval to cite their use case, I did not directly name the hospital.
In the first success story an applications analyst of a national healthcare system works directly with the diabetes program manager to provide timely access to critical data for diabetic patients at automated intervals. With our solutions, he can pull reports from their Meditech system, input safety parameters, extract glucose values at specific times of day, and automatically generate an Excel report with 22 tabs. The diabetes program manager can use the generated diabetes work sheet to ascertain which diabetic patients are not well controlled, and determine the causes for poor control. In fact, the applications analyst can automatically generate a checklist sorted by beds and by how the caregivers walk the floor. The checklist provides patient names, medication dosages and when given, and glucose values at specific times of day – eliminating the need for manual chart reviews to provide this information.
In the second success story the financial impact of Datawatch was significant for a nonprofit, multispecialty, pediatric health system in Texas. The Assistant Vice President of Business Services was able to make sense of the data coming out of different systems and combine the data to get a full picture for revenue cycle management, The Assistant Vice President of Business Services can data mine patient information, payer information, and clinical information in order to create the robust reporting needed. He can “slice and dice” the data across several locations and lines of business, reimbursement rates, as well as by individual facility performance and individual provider productivity. He is able to do so without requiring manual reporting from staff and without needing to outsource any work to a consulting firm.
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