DALLAS, Feb. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Spending on information technology for healthcare providers is on the rise, according to nearly half of the 307 chief information officers (CIOs) and directors of information systems responding to the 15th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey. Better than half of all respondents said their facilities would plan to adopt personal digital assistants (PDAs), bar coding technology and speech recognition over the next two years, and nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they had either planned to implement an electronic health record (EHR) system or had already begun the installation of EHR-related hardware and software.
While healthcare IT spending may be on the rise for some providers, budgets are tight nonetheless. How can hospital administrators determine which IT systems are delivering the best return on investment? Baylor Health Care System expects to find the answer to this question and many others using software from SAS, the leader in business intelligence. By using SAS(R) Enterprise Miner(TM) in conjunction with other integrated components of the SAS(R)9 Intelligence Platform, researchers can measure and analyze quality improvement efforts related to the provider’s $119 million clinical transformation initiative.
“Many healthcare providers are making substantial investments in new IT systems largely based on faith,” said Jim McPhail, vice president of enterprise services for Baylor Health Care System. “We tapped SAS for powerful, flexible business intelligence software that will help us create synergy between our healthcare research initiatives and our quality improvement efforts.”
In 2002, Baylor Health Care System began a seven-year effort to redesign its clinical processes and to seamlessly link information throughout its network of 11 hospitals, 69 clinic sites and numerous physician practices. This clinical transformation includes investments in IT and changes in the way patients are treated - all with an eye toward using evidence-based decision making to improve care.
The goal of the clinical transformation is to generate a single, secure electronic health record (EHR) for each patient treated in the Baylor Health Care System. Accessible through a handheld or desktop computer, these EHRs will be extremely valuable to clinical care providers by improving the collaboration between clinicians in the management and delivery of patient care. Of perhaps greater significance in the long term, the use of EHRs will also produce a deluge of clinical data that can be used by biostatisticians and clinical scholars using SAS software to conduct research pertaining to healthcare quality and effectiveness. The insights derived from this research will be deployed in the operationally focused healthcare improvement initiatives of Baylor Health Care System.
“Our clinical transformation encompasses a large number of improvement efforts, including electronic health records, computerized physician order entry, medication management processes and clinical documentation,” said Neil Fleming, PhD, vice president of healthcare research for Baylor Health Care System. “We will use SAS software to quantify the value of each of these initiatives.”
Baylor Health Care System will also use SAS software to sift through vast amounts of data generated internally and available from external sources, including the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), Texas mortality data and national Medicare claims data. By analyzing information from a wide range of sources, clinical scholars will make an effort to identify certain segments within Baylor Health Care System’s patient population that may respond favorably to clinical intervention. For instance, analysts will use SAS in a randomized trial to evaluate a new program that provides transitional care to elderly patients moving from in-patient to discharge status in an attempt to determine if these treatments can improve outcomes.
SAS turns raw data into powerful insights that healthcare leaders can use to solve specific challenges. SAS transforms questions into approaches that can be tested and validated to provide answers. This reduces uncertainty, quantifies variability, refines processes and helps allocate resources with greater precision. SAS doesn’t just provide historical insights; SAS also provides predictive insights into the future. In addition to transforming data into intelligence, SAS assures that this intelligence is available to those who need it and in whatever format they choose. Whether they require electronic distribution of reports, interactive query environments, delivery of content via a Web-based portal or publish-and-subscribe channel distribution of information through e-mail, SAS delivers.
Today’s announcement was made on the opening day of the 2005 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, where SAS is exhibiting in Booth #7428.
About Baylor Health Care System
Baylor Health Care System, http://www.baylorhealth.com/, is an integrated health care delivery system with components that include hospitals, primary care physician centers and practices, rehabilitation clinics, senior health centers, affiliated ambulatory surgery centers and a research institute. One of the largest private-sector employers in Dallas/Fort Worth, Baylor employs more than 15,000 people and has more than 3,000 physicians on its medical staffs. Baylor University Medical Center, flagship hospital of the system, is a major patient care, teaching and research center for the Southwest.
About SAS
SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500(R) - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at http://www.sas.com/ .
SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.
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CONTACT: Bob Chase of SAS Institute Inc., +1-919-531-4327, orBob.Chase@sas.com