Business intelligence (BI) has fueled the growth of many businesses through the years, especially in the finance and manufacturing industries. Today, BI and big data also benefit healthcare businesses that are aiming to improve their processes and lower their readmission rates.

At its core, BI software is all about data analytics. BI software is capable of accepting staggering amounts of data in short periods of time. It uses advanced analysis algorithms to search for trends in the data that even the most experienced statistician cannot find. Because BI can quickly provide deep insights, businesses across industries have utilized different BI software to gain competitive advantages and streamline their workflows. For instance, healthcare organizations use BI to manage their readmission rates.

What is readmission?

Readmission refers to the instance a healthcare institution admits a patient within 30 days of that patient’s previous hospital stay. Readmissions usually occur because of:

• Complications arising from the preceding treatment
• Errors committed by hospital staff (e.g., leaving a sponge in the patient’s body after surgery)
• Patients not following their doctors’ recommendations
• Insufficient access to proper medical services and medications in the patient’s community

Why should hospitals want to reduce their readmission rate?

There are three main reasons why hospitals must strive to keep patients from returning for additional treatments:

1. Readmissions are financially crippling and more medically risky for patients
   Medical care in America is one of the most expensive in the world. While the degree of how much medical expenses affect people’s decisions to file for bankruptcy is up for debate, such expenses are nevertheless a contributing factor. Having to be treated more than once is therefore backbreaking for Americans, especially for those who are living paycheck to paycheck. Not only that, but the likelihood of getting hospital-acquired infection also increases the more one visits and/or the longer one stays in a healthcare facility. This results in a costly downward spiral no one wants to be in.
2. Medicare and Medicaid won’t pay for complete coverage
   Readmissions also take a toll on Medicare and Medicaid. This is why the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) impose a payment reduction penalty of up to 3% upon hospitals that exceed certain thresholds for readmission rates. That is, CMS only pays 97% of covered medical costs instead of the entire 100%. The penalty is arguably also a tool to keep hospitals from profiteering.
3. Having a high readmission rate can reduce a hospital’s reputation
   Once people find out that your hospital has a high readmission rate, they may begin to avoid your institution, thinking it provides poor-quality care.

How can business intelligence help hospitals with readmission rate reduction?

BI can help reduce readmission rates in several ways. For instance, by using patient-centric data points such as income level, English proficiency, housing conditions, and community resources, hospital administrators will have greater insight into the welfare of their patients. This knowledge will enable healthcare professionals to factor in their patients’ circumstances, create special care plans to increase the likelihood that their patients will abide by their medical recommendations, and help them prevent expensive readmissions.

Furthermore, by using BI software to merge socioeconomic data with electronic medical records, medical professionals can easily create individual profiles that will predict how likely a patient is going to require readmission, even before care is provided. Predictive analytics allows doctors to adjust the initial care they provide certain types of patients so that the likelihood of readmitting such patients is dramatically reduced.

In addition to helping you lower readmission rates, BI software can also provide your practice with unprecedented levels of care and efficiency. Call us today to get started with proven IT experts.

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Businesses use Microsoft Excel for many purposes, including creating formulas, planning budgets, recording expenditures, and more. A spreadsheet can handle limitless amounts of information, making it an extremely useful tool for storing and analyzing data such as text and numbers. With its essential upgrade, Excel lets you do so much more.

Previous Excel upgrades include the addition of dynamic arrays and array formulas, a feature that enabled single formulas to return an array of values. Another upgrade was the Stocks and Geography function, which lets users add stock and geography data into a spreadsheet with the help of the search engine Bing. These are both useful, but Microsoft decided to add even more functionality to the program.

New data types

Excel has always been a formidable tool for storing text, numbers, and formulas and allowing users to process information out of them. Still, the data that one could put in Excel grids were limited because they were flat. Recent upgrades improve upon that limitation.

Luckily, users can now add data types to Excel, making the program more dynamic and intelligent. These data types effectively expand what information inside cells can do. In particular, cells can now contain not just text and number data, but a connected, up-to-the-minute collection of information such as currencies, cities, population, stocks, and the like. Simply put, cells can interact with charts and formulas with live data.

Data in cells can be used as a reference for an even larger collection of different data types, images, and actions. In other words, you’re no longer just typing data and writing formulas into a cell, although you can still do both. Rather, a cell can contain a specific set of information that branches out into subsets of data that you would otherwise need to type directly into the cell.

For example, if you’re creating or upgrading a customer information spreadsheet, things like transaction history, preferences, or phone numbers don’t have to be typed one by one. Adding customer-specific data types could simplify this process: entering a customer name in a cell would link to a network of information about a specific entry (i.e., customer) using a scroll-over menu, as opposed to having to enter all that information manually. This makes data input more flexible, efficient, and less prone to error resulting from copy-pasting and manual entry.

Enhancements for Power BI customers

It is, however, users of Microsoft Power BI, the company’s business intelligence program, who will greatly benefit from the upgrades. If your company uses Power BI, data published into your account will automatically link to Excel, which makes the flow of company data types into the program more seamless.

In addition, Microsoft’s data connection technology Power Query will allow users to create custom data types, while pre-configured data types (through a partnership with knowledge engine provider Wolfram Alpha) will also soon be added to let users track different types of information.

This only scratches the surface of what these Excel upgrades can do. For more Office and general productivity tips, consult our IT experts today.

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Most of us don’t normally associate Business Intelligence (BI) with small- or medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The huge investment required to hire data-delving specialists makes us think BI is only for larger organizations. But this is no longer the case. Not only does a growing selection of self-service tools make BI more affordable for SMBs, but it also makes data management more efficient, given that your business probably creates and holds more data than you realize, making it easier for you to get going. It’s time you start harnessing data that will help you to make more strategic business decisions.

You’ve already got the data you need

It’s easy to underestimate the amount of data your SMB already has at its disposal. In every area of your business, from finance and sales to customer relations and website management, the software packages you use to simplify your everyday operations are packed with reams of information that most of us don’t even think twice about. By talking to key stakeholders in your organization’s various departments, you can get an idea of the kind of data you already have, how it’s generated, and where it’s stored. You can then start to think about using BI tools to transform that information into meaningful business insights that will inform your decision-making. No need for you to invest in time-consuming data generation from scratch!

Self-service BI tools are plentiful — and affordable

The emergence of self-service BI puts useful business analytics within reach of smaller business owners who lack the fancy-pants budgets of larger corporations. In fact, there are numerous self-service BI tools that you can use to get started in this area without even spending a dime. Microsoft Power BI is a powerful application that’s pleasingly user-friendly, and most businesses will find the functions they need in the free version. Zoho Analytics has a low entry-level cost, too, and the slightly pricier yet still affordable Tableau is another option that’s worth exploring.

It’s easy to get started

BI is an intimidating term, especially for the average business owner. But by taking small steps, it’s easy for anyone to get started — and before you know it, you’ll be enjoying the benefits of having data-driven, intelligence-based insights that will enable you to make better business decisions.

Most self-service BI tools come with built-in suggestions for reports that businesses commonly run and find useful. Other worthwhile statistics to explore include the percentage of your clients who cancel within a set period, website landing pages that generate the longest visits, your most profitable individual products or services, the days or months in which you generate your highest revenues, and which of your clients bring in the most revenue and profit.

Truly harnessing data is the future of the business world — it’s how companies like yours can make smarter decisions that increase efficiency and profitability. And having self-service tools available means SMBs no longer need a crazy budget to be able to afford the benefits of BI. To find out more about putting in place the tools that can help you do smarter business, just give us a call.

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A dashboard is a single display that provides all the information you need to make important business decisions and manage your company. While dashboards are generally helpful, you need to choose the one that works best for your company’s objectives and goals. Here are three types of business dashboards to consider.

Strategic dashboards

Ideal for senior managers and executives, strategic dashboards are designed to help identify potential opportunities for business expansion and improvement. This type of dashboard gives a bird’s-eye view of your business and track performance metrics against enterprise-wide strategic goals.

They summarize performance over set time frames: past month, quarter, or year. They can contain anything from overall sales numbers to sales and revenue comparisons to inventory levels, making it easy for executives to understand the overall health of the organization and monitor the long-term company strategy.

Operational dashboards

Business owners use operational dashboards to monitor and measure in real time the effectiveness and efficiency of their employees’ progress in relation to their targets. Since these dashboards focus on tracking operational processes, they are often more detailed than strategic dashboards and are usually viewed by junior levels of management multiple times throughout the day.

They are also commonly found in departments that need to respond to critical information quickly, such as marketing and operations. They help departments stay proactive and ahead of problems. For example, marketing teams can use this type of dashboard to monitor their campaign’s metrics such as cost per acquisition, total number of clicks, total acquisitions gained, and the total amount spent. Any significant changes would immediately alert the team. The operations team of manufacturing firms, on the other hand, may use this to track products manufactured, number of defects, complaints, and returns. They are then alerted right away when performance falls below targets.

Analytical dashboards

When it comes to creating and implementing strong business strategies, understanding the trends and events in your data is crucial. Analytical dashboards use volumes of data collected over time so you could compare current against historic data, enjoy in-depth analysis, identify patterns and opportunities, and determine why processes are working in certain departments. These dashboards present complex data, utilizing complex models and what-if statements, so they are commonly just used by staff with advanced training such as business analysts.

How do I know which dashboard to choose?

To help you choose which dashboard best suits your needs, you can ask yourself the following questions:

#1. What business problems are we trying to solve?

• Strategic dashboards – Top-line organizational KPIs
• Operational dashboards – Data awareness and time-sensitive data
• Analytical dashboards – Trends or deeper insights

#2. Who will be using the dashboards?

• Strategic dashboards – Executives, directors
• Operational dashboards – Business managers
• Analytical dashboards – Business analysts, data analysts

#3. What are our goals?

• Strategic dashboards – Strategic goals, such as achieving KPI targets
• Operational dashboards – Employee awareness and tracking against goals
• Analytical dashboards – Analytic goals, such as visibility into key processes

Dashboards concentrate all data, metrics, and parameters in one place, bringing a totally new dimension to business intelligence. Your company can significantly benefit from the right dashboard. If you’re looking to implement dashboards for the first time or to enhance the functionality of your current dashboard, get in touch with us today.

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From free information products such as ebooks to brochures and email campaigns, today’s marketers have a wealth of tools and tactics at their disposal. While content marketing and social media garner most of the attention in the marketing world, it’s easy to forget about tried and true techniques that are as effective today as they were twenty years ago. Recent data supports that one age-old sales tool in particular is still incredibly effective today, and even beats out some newer marketing tactics. What is it? Let’s take a look.

What is one thing every consumer has in common? They all love to save money. This is why the marketing technique of offering coupons is still as effective today as it was decades ago. Shocked? Don’t believe this is true? Well, let’s explore some statistics.

A recent report by Valassis, a large marketing firm that serves clients across the globe, provided some enlightening information on the effectiveness of coupons. Here’s what they discovered in terms of how coupons influence consumers.

• 82% of all consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they wouldn’t normally because of a coupon
• 85% are influenced to try a new product because of a coupon
• 84% are more likely to switch brands because of the weekly specials on offer
• 24% choose to shop at another brand’s store over their preferred because of better advertised bargains

This same report also uncovers some interesting data about brand loyalists, revealing that 78% are more likely to buy from a brand they wouldn’t normally patronize, due to a coupon. While this number is surprising close to the amount of total consumers influenced by coupons (as mentioned in the first bullet point above) this next bit of data may come as more of a surprise: 43% of brand loyalists have a more positive view of a company that offers coupons over those who don’t.

While this recent report goes a long way to revealing the benefits of coupons, how do they compare to another common marketing offer used today: free information products?

The appeal of coupons over information products

According to one marketing firm based in Waterford, Connecticut, a coupon was chosen 9 out of 10 times over an ebook when offered simultaneously. This raises an interesting question: why would a coupon be more effective than a free ebook or other information product? Let’s look at some common psychology triggers at play here.

Broad appeal – simply put, coupons have mass appeal. While information products are likely to be seen as more valuable to those with a higher education, a coupon can appeal to all income brackets – from the very wealthy to the very poor.

Instant value – to gain results from an information product requires a time investment and action. For example, if a customer receives a free 30 page ebook that explains how to get the best discounts on electronic equipment, he or she needs to read the book and then take action (and possibly create a plan) to gain the rewards of that time investment. Many consumers would rather spend their time doing something else, but a coupon on the other hand offers immediate value. Simply hand it over to the service provider, and you save money instantly. What’s not to love about that?

Uniqueness – the online marketplace is flooded with free information products. While they’re still an effective tool to gain a prospect’s email address, far fewer businesses offer coupons on their website, especially in the small business sector. By offering a coupon, you provide a free offer that immediately separates you from the pack.

The point here is that just because a marketing tool is popular doesn’t mean it’s the most effective. This is why we encourage you to review data and statistics before implementing any marketing technique in your business. It can save you a whole lot of time and also make your business stand out.

Want more valuable business information that can help you connect better with your customers? Curious to learn how IT can help collect data more easily? Call us today to find out more.

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