When it comes to healthcare organizations, we often don’t consider how important financial data is to delivering quality patient care and offering a wide array of services. We often make the mistake of separating clinical data from financial statements when considering healthcare operations.
There is an abundance of information regarding clinical data and electronic health records. For example, how healthcare practices can analyze EHR data to improve healthcare outcomes or security best practices for patient data.
However, there is a striking lack of information regarding the value of financial data in the healthcare setting. Hospital financial information can be utilized in several ways to not only drive cost savings but also improve care for patients.
This post will explore the ways healthcare providers can utilize financial information. You might be surprised to learn about all of the ways financial information can be put to use in the healthcare setting.
Putting Financial Data to Good Use in Healthcare
When discussing health care, you don’t often expect to hear terms like financial ratios, profitability, accounts receivable, net income, etc. However, if a healthcare provider fails to mind their balance sheet or seek increased revenue, they will no longer be able to deliver effective treatments.
While profit should always take a back seat to patient care, healthcare providers have to consider financial reports when analyzing the performance of their practice. Analyzing financial data can have serious benefits for healthcare providers.
Here are the ways healthcare providers can utilize the insights provided by their financial data to improve their practice:
- Improved care quality
- Improved operational efficiency
- Discover new revenue streams
- Reduce risk
Improved Care Quality
How can analyzing a financial statement help a medical practice improve the quality of its patient care? Through financial analysis, practices can make vital decisions to improve operations and thus improve care.
When your practice generates revenue, it has more resources to improve treatments, patient engagement systems, etc. In addition, by improving the efficiency of your operations through financial analysis, you can provide more detailed care to each patient.
There are several different tasks that are unrelated to patient care that takes up valuable time and resources from a medical practice and its employees. When you can streamline these tasks and optimize operations, the care provided by your practice will improve.
Improved Operational Efficiency
Large healthcare groups and hospital systems are complex ecosystems; even small medical practices have many moving parts. Therefore, financial data analysis is vital to identifying inefficiencies and improving operations.
It can be easy to lose sight of important details in such a chaotic setting. However, healthcare organizations can use their financial data to ensure operations are running smoothly and highlight improvement areas.
As we have highlighted already, operational efficiency is good for the bottom line and an important aspect of delivering quality patient care and investing in new services and equipment.
Discover New Revenue Streams
Healthcare providers can use financial data to potentially help them find new revenue streams. Healthcare practices can identify emerging trends and unlock new revenue opportunities using advanced analytics and a financial information system.
New revenue opportunities enable healthcare providers to expand their service offerings and invest in cutting-edge technology and new treatments. As a result, practices that can generate more revenue are ultimately better positioned to deliver better care.
Identifying new opportunities and revenue streams can have a significant impact on your practice or healthcare system.
Reduce Risk
Healthcare organizations are no stranger to risk. Practices that rely on manual entry and reporting of financial data subject themselves to greater risk than providers that utilize financial information systems.
Not only is there risk in manual entry error, but there is also risk involved in the manual interpretation of financial data. HiTech financial information systems can analyze complicated financial information far more effectively and accurately than a human can.
Hospitals and practitioners cannot afford to risk misdiagnosing their own financial health by trying to manually analyze complex financial data.
Financial Data Analytics in Healthcare is Growing
Financial data analytics have been a significant part of most industries for a while now. However, there are a lot of growth opportunities for this type of technology in the healthcare sector.
Administrators in small and large medical practices and health systems are recognizing the unique value of these tools as the interconnected nature of financial operations and health operations become apparent.
Whether your organization is a FinTech company looking to develop innovative solutions for the healthcare sector or a medical practice seeking more information about the importance of financial data analytics in healthcare, Koombea is your strategic IT and development partner.
If you need help navigating the emerging data analytic trends in healthcare, you have a dedicated partner at Koombea. Contact us to learn more about our unique service offerings informed by nearly two decades of tech experience.
