The convergence of separate health systems has led to a great increase in data, which some organisations are struggling to get to grips with. Harnessing analytic tools and sharing knowledge is the best way forward

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Analytics Sharing
June 2014
Wealth of Information
The convergence of separate health systems has led to
a great increase in data, which some organisations are
struggling to get to grips with. Harnessing analytic tools
and sharing knowledge is the best way forward
Heather E Fraser
at IBM
The healthcare ecosystem is the convergence of otherwise
separate entities, such as pharmaceutical and life sciences
organisations, healthcare providers and payers, as well as
social and government agencies.This convergence, along
with enhanced connectivity and mobility, has resulted in a
tremendous increase in healthcare-related data, which can
help create insights and inform actions to ultimately drive
better outcomes.
To gain optimum value, information must be shared across
the entire ecosystem.Today, however, most organisations are
ill-equipped to share information within their own walls, let
alone across the entire ecosystem. A recent IBM global study
explored how pharma and other life sciences companies
can position themselves within the healthcare ecosystem to
optimise their performance through the use of analytics (1).
The survey generated 555 responses from executives, of
which 188 were from life sciences companies, 228 from
healthcare providers, and 139 from payers. It was conducted
with healthcare companies in North America, Europe, India,
Japan, China, Singapore and Mexico.
Executive Voices
Firstly, let us consider why analytics is such an important
competitive differentiator for companies today. In another
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Analytics in Action
From managing small details to large processes, analytics
can assist in research through development, into sales and
marketing, and beyond. Figure 1 shows some of the potential
benefits that can be realised from applying analytics across
the entire healthcare ecosystem. Consider the following
examples of how life sciences companies are driving the
use of analytics across their own value chain and beyond:
Select better drug candidates in research – by
leveraging real-world data with advanced analytic
techniques, including crowd-sourced methods, it is
possible to reduce waste due to unsuccessful product
candidates by as much as 60% (3)
Select the right people for clinical trials – difficulty
recruiting patient volunteers can double the original
development timeline of Phase 2-4 trials across all
therapeutic areas. Analytic tools are being employed
to better match patients with clinical trials, track
performance and look for leading indicators (4)
Ensure patients adhere to treatment regimes – providing
an adherence and patient monitoring service, driven
by analytics performed on remote monitoring data, can
ensure that drugs are taken and prescriptions refilled in
a timely manner
Provide innovative personalised treatment management –
by analysing large numbers of anonymous patient data,a
decision support solution can be developed and provided
at the point-of-care to enable personalised treatment
Invest in holistic care of the chronically ill – recognising
that the support carers give to patients goes beyond
just demonstrating the efficacy of the medication, life
sciences companies are working with other healthcare
professionals to drive better outcomes for the chronically
ill through the use of analytics
Making it Happen
The study attempted to define the capabilities that companies
will need to focus on to enable the sharing of information and
insights within the four walls of the individual organisations,
as well as across the wider ecosystem.Here are five of the
competencies that companies will need to optimise:
1. Sponsorship and Adoption
Two-thirds of the organisations that were interviewed
reported that they considered analytics a priority,
and have an analytics strategy or roadmap in place.
One US executive said:“Analytics is built in from the grass-
roots at our company and evolves as an approach to inform
our strategy.”However, organisations are struggling
with understanding and using advanced techniques.
recent study, IBM talked to over 4,000 C-level corporate
executives (CxOs), of which 100 were from life sciences
companies. Chief executive officers told us they consider
technology to be the single most important external force
shaping their organisations, but it was other CxOs that
provided commentary on analytics and its use across the
various functions (2). Specifically:
Four-fifths of chief information officers told us that
over the next three to five years they intend to focus IT
on using analytics to create deep insights, from both
structured and unstructured data, in order to increase
competitiveness
Supply chain executives are putting advanced analytics and
modelling tools in place to predict demand and accelerate
decision-making,creating a truly customer-activated
operating model
Those executives leading human resources in
outperforming enterprises rely more heavily on big
data and analytics, especially in improving decision-
making in the area of talent management
Finally,chief marketing officers believe technology,such
as advanced analytics tools,will play a big role in helping
them realise their goals in capturing customer insights
Patient Provider Payer
Life sciences Other stakeholders (social care,
organisation government, legal, regulators)
Personalised/holistic care
Reduced time to provide the right treatment
Matching the patient with the most appropriate
physician, enabling the best possible care
Remote monitoring and medical homes enable more efficient
chronic condition management with fewer hospitalisations
Enhanced patient safety and care quality, greater operational
efficiency and minimal clinical claims fraud
Mapping disease trajectory and prognosis, enabling more
enhanced, timely care
Patient segmentation that enables choosing the most
appropriate medication for each patient
Identify better product candidates and facilitate fast, cost-efficient
development of new drugs, medical devices and diagnostics
Better match patients with clinical trials and track real-time
performance for faster regulatory approvals
Population health management without losing sight of each
individual patient and his or her needs
Figure 1: Some potential benefits of using analytics across
the healthcare ecosystem

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the capacity and having the right people to extract
valuable intelligence from it.
5. How Are We Doing?
Metrics to measure success should be in place from day
one of any analytics project,and tracked via a balanced
scorecard approach.Organisations could start with
the key metrics used to manage their business today,
but they should be used for much more than just
determining decreases in costs and increases in revenue.
Metrics can measure key areas such as successful time-to-
market for life sciences products and services;they are a
major component of ensuring the adoption of analytics
projects across the entire enterprise.
Conclusion
Looking to the future,the ability to access and derive
meaningful insights from the wealth of information
available will become a necessity.The life sciences
organisations that can harness and share that data to
create insights,inform actions and drive better outcomes
– across all the components of the healthcare ecosystem –
will be those most likely to become the outperformers
of tomorrow.
References
1. Analytics across the ecosystem: A prescription for optimizing
healthcare outcomes, IBM Institute for Business Value,
September 2013
2. The customer-activated enterprise, IBM Institute for
Business Value, October 2013
3. Trusting the science that drives your business: A systematic
approach to verify scientific claims, IBM Institute for Business
Value, May 2013
4. New tools automatically match patients with clinical
trials, Nature Medicine, July 2013
About the author
Heather Fraser has over 30 years’
experience in the life sciences and
healthcare sectors, working across
community pharmacy, the pharma
industry, and in consultancy. She is
currently the global leader for
healthcare and life sciences in IBM’s
Institute for Business Value, where she develops
strategies on related business issues. Recent papers
have investigated the future of the life sciences industry
and the implications for research, clinical and
pharmaceutical development, manufacturing and the
supply chain, as well as alliance management and
convergence across the pharma and healthcare
industries. Email: hfraser@uk.ibm.com