The 300th Case Study – How We Got Here

On June 15 Health Catalyst published its 300^th customer case study, featuring WakeMed Health and Hospitals. In preparation for reaching number 300, we reviewed our vast case study library, reflecting on some of the incredible breakthroughs and milestones that have fueled healthcare transformation and empowered our customers to achieve their bold missions.

Together, we’ve enabled clinical improvements, reduced stroke mortality rates, and reduced healthcare waste, among other clinical, operational, and financial improvements.

The impact of our efforts has resulted in

• $1.5 billion validated measurable improvements
• 5.4 million lives positively impacted by improvement initiatives
• 2.9 million care gaps closed

Read below for a closer look and a few examples of how we got here.

Enabling Clinical Improvements

One of Health Catalyst’s first published case studies features MultiCare Health System (MultiCare), a Tacoma, Washington-based health system. In 2013, MultiCare recorded it was able to reduce sepsis mortality rates by an average of 22 percent after implementing Health Catalyst’s The Adaptive Data Warehouse™.

Up to 50 percent of all hospital deaths in the United States are linked to sepsis, according to a report from the Journal of American Medical Association. Due to the complex comorbidity factors leading to sepsis, MultiCare partnered with Health Catalyst to refine the clinical definition of sepsis. Health Catalyst’s data work allowed MultiCare to explore the boundaries of the definition and to ultimately settle on an algorithm that defined a septic patient.

In addition, MultiCare developed a modified early warning system (MEWS) dashboard that leveraged the new definition and electronic medical records (EMR) to quickly identify patients who were trending towards a sudden downturn. Hospital staff constantly monitors MEWS which serves as an early detection tool.

Since MultiCare’s case study in 2013, Health Catalyst has published the case studies of more than 10 hospitals and health systems that have reduced sepsis mortality rates, sepsis-related length of stay (LOS), and have committed to continuous improvement for this disease state. Read those stories, here.

Reducing the Stroke Mortality Rate

Health Catalyst’s library of case studies features numerous partners that have made significant clinical advancements in stroke care.

Stroke is a leading cause of death in the United States – on average, one American dies from stroke every four minutes with more than 795,000 deaths annually, according to the CDC.

Health Catalyst’s first published case study about stroke care was in 2016, recording how Allina Health’s Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute was able to successfully implement a care coordination model for stroke patients that reduced the mortality per 1000 strokes from 36 to zero. Patients with care management services experienced an 8 percent less chance of a secondary stroke within 180 days of discharge.

One component of the model that led to these results was the use of a data warehouse and analytics platform from Health Catalyst – a project that integrated clinical, demographic, cost, claims and patient functionality data from across the enterprise. The platform gave clinicians the capability to identify and target high risk patients as soon as possible after admission for coordinated stroke care, prove value of care management, model through improved outcomes, and measure and improve patient satisfaction.

Since Allina Health’s documented success, Health Catalyst has highlighted several other partners who achieved substantial health outcomes for stroke patients through the utilization of data and analytics. Those case study examples can be found here.

Improving Diabetes Diagnosis

In 2019, the Queen’s Health Systems (Queen’s), the largest nonprofit network of hospitals and health-related entities serving Hawaii residents, adopted the Self-Service Analytics Suite to enable the accelerated implementation of custom algorithms to better identify patients with undiagnosed pre-diabetes, diabetes, and hypertension, as well as patients with past-due diabetes/pre-diabetes screenings.

Although staff was capable of building and implementing the algorithms, staffing constraints and disparate EMRs created delays. Queen’s needed to accelerate the process to secure a Hawaii Department of Health grant designated for improving the management of patients with diabetes.

By adopting the Self-Service Analytics Suite, Queen’s accelerated the implementation of the custom algorithms and was able to quickly and efficiently identify patients with undiagnosed diabetes, undiagnosed pre-diabetes, and/or past-due diabetes/pre-diabetes screening.

Read more to learn more about our healthcare customers efforts to improve diabetes diagnosis and care.

Making Data Integration Less Labor Intensive

In 2017, Health Catalyst partner Orlando Health, one of Florida’s most comprehensive private, not-for-profit healthcare networks consisting of eight hospitals and 50 clinics, instated effective data integration that significantly reduced data acquisition times.

Orlando Health needed the ability to rapidly acquire and link disparate healthcare data sources in various ways to answer critical clinical and business questions. After transitioning from an old EDW to Health Catalyst’s Analytics Platform built using the Late-Binding™ Data Warehouse architecture, Orlando Health achieved the following efficiencies:

• 245 fewer days and 1.0 less full-time employee needed to integrate encounter billing summary system data.
• 56 fewer days and 0.4 less full-time employee needed to integrate Infection control system data.
• 99 percent reduction (90 days saved) in the amount of time needed to implement system enhancements.
• 98 percent reduction in the work hours needed to incorporate system enhancements.

Identifying Workflow Waste Leads to Sizable Savings

One of the earliest case studies published by Health Catalyst highlighted the sizable amount of healthcare waste that can be avoided at one hospital by implementing a data and analytics solution. In 2015, Texas Children’s Hospital improved care quality, increased system wide efficiency, and eliminated workflow waste—all while lowering costs— by using integrated operational and financial data.

To achieve bottom line improvements, Texas Children’s leveraged its existing Late-Binding™ Enterprise Data Warehouse platform from Health Catalyst.

By equipping leaders with ready access to integrated, near real-time financial and operational information, the hospital improved quality, increased system wide efficiency and eliminated workflow waste—realizing $74 million in performance improvements, with new financial and operating analytics driving a significant portion of this number.

An estimated $12 million of these savings have been attributed to improved labor performance.

Using Analytics to Identify Expense Reduction Opportunities Across the Board

With healthcare increasingly moving toward value based care, Allina Health recognized the need to focus more sharply on ways to fund its mission. As a large health system with limited resources, the health system was challenged to standardize work to improve outcomes and reduce costs.

Allina Health used the Health Catalyst® Analytics Platform and broad suite of analytics applications as its primary source for managing and mining data. To identify opportunities for improving clinical value, data analysts used the rich data in the analytics platform to find undesirable variation in high-cost, high-volume clinical care processes.

With a data-driven, multidisciplinary team effort, Allina Health’s Clinical Value Program improved care and delivered on the Triple Aim.

Details of Allina Health’s success include:

• $32.7 million savings validated by implementing 71 projects within the first two years of the program.
• $1.1 million savings in less than one year by adopting a minimalist approach to transcatheter aortic valve replacement. This change also reduced LOS by 31 percent and achieved a 17.4 percent relative reduction in median procedure time.

In Conclusion

Since Health Catalyst’s first published case study in 2013, we continue to be in awe of the achievements our customers have documented, verified, and shared, bring the Health Catalyst case study odyssey of healthcare improvements to the 300^th that we published on June 15^th.

We celebrate every healthcare professional that has contributed to these transformational achievements and thank them for their continued commitment to delivering massive, measurable, data-informed improvement within their own systems.