How to Accelerate Clinical Improvement Using
Four Domains of Clinical Analytics

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How to Accelerate Clinical Improvement
Do health systems effectively leverage clinical
analytics to drive real outcomes improvement?
Holly Rimmasch, Chief Clinical Officer and
Senior Vice President and General Manager of
Clinical Quality Analytics at Health Catalyst,
posed this thought-provoking question at the
beginning of her Q&A interview podcast.
Although leveraging clinical analytics that
result in better care is a complex process,
Rimmasch says it is possible, especially with
the increased availability of healthcare data.

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How to Accelerate Clinical Improvement
As healthcare organizations use data from
increasing sources, organizations are still
learning the best way to collect, organize, and
distribute the most relevant data to end users.
According to Rimmasch, the proliferation of
healthcare data and clinical analytics has
paved the way for better decision making
across the industry.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
Drawing from nearly three decades of
healthcare experience—from direct patient
care to clinical and operational healthcare
strategy and various management and
executive roles—Rimmasch shared four key
aspects of clinical analytics that organizations
should carefully consider if they want to
achieve sustainable improvement:
1. Data Acquisition
2. Clinical Analytics Usage
3. Unrealized Opportunities in Clinical Analytics
4. Patient Engagement

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#1: Data Acquisition
The inception of the EHR made previously
unseen clinical data widely accessible to
healthcare organizations.
While helpful in understanding a patient’s
hospital experience, the EHR doesn’t provide
a complete picture of an individual’s health.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#1: Data Acquisition
Organizations should also focus on acquiring
other clinical data, including imaging, lab,
and ambulatory data, because these data
sets also contribute to understanding other
valuable data points with health implications,
such as prescriptions fills and refills.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#1: Data Acquisition
Healthcare leaders should consider all data
sources along the entire care continuum.
EHR data is valuable but often doesn’t include
specific information about a patient’s other
routine care, such as filling a prescription.
However, if a patient fills or refills a
prescription, a claim is submitted with
information about the drug, the dose,
and the date.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#1: Data Acquisition
This information is significant and useful
for the patient’s care team to know, but
they can’t access it without claims data
in addition to their EHR or clinical data.
Therefore, organizations should consider
multiple data sources beyond the
traditional EHR.
Video: Clinical Analytics Drives Informed Decisions

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#2: Clinical Analytics Usage
Rimmasch said over her career, she has
seen organizations leverage clinical
analytics to improve preventive care, end-
of-life care, and everything in between.
She emphasized two specific ways she
has seen organizations use data to
advance care:
• Target Individual Patients
• Target Groups

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#2: Clinical Analytics Usage
Target Individual Patients: When
patients go to the clinician’s office, the
care team uses data to identify at-risk
areas they need to address.
For example, if the patient has high
blood glucose levels, the clinician might
put him on a pre-diabetes care plan.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#2: Clinical Analytics Usage
Target Groups: Early in her career,
Rimmasch oversaw the care management
program at a large healthcare provider and
noticed that patients with heart failure
would continue to readmit within a few
weeks of discharge.
When she looked at the heart failure data,
she learned that in-person appointments
within seven days of discharge, versus the
routine phone call, allowed the care team to
better assess how patients were faring after
discharge and meet their specific needs.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#2: Clinical Analytics Usage
Target Groups: Rimmasch applied this
analytic insight to the larger population of
patients with heart failure to prevent
unnecessary readmissions and accelerate
healing in the home, if advised by the
medical staff.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#3: Unrealized Opportunities in Clinical Analytics
Data-driven improvement is a buzzword in
healthcare, but there is truth to using data to drive
long-lasting improvements, said Rimmasch.
She provided a few key areas in which
organizations can improve their clinical analytics
use to inform better care:
• EHR Alerts
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#3: Unrealized Opportunities in Clinical Analytics
EHR Alerts: To guide better care delivery,
organizations can create custom alerts in the
EHR-based on their own criteria.
To avoid EHR alert fatigue and help the alerts
catch provider attention, Rimmasch said that
organizational leaders should prioritize the type
and number of alerts each day based on the
system’s high-priority areas.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#3: Unrealized Opportunities in Clinical Analytics
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML):
Rimmasch said that leaders need to develop
AI and ML with a deep understanding of the
patient and clinician workflow.
If leaders create AI and ML in a silo and then
implement it in a clinical setting, these advanced
tools will become a burden—rather than a benefit—
for clinicians.
Video: Improve Care Delivery Every Day

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#4: Patient Engagement
Among the unlimited types of data, the voice of
the patient includes some of the most important
information.
According to Rimmasch, organizations’ clinical
analytics should reflect the voice of the patient.
Patient engagement tools (e.g., Twistle™ by
Health Catalyst) allow health systems to
communicate with patients and engage them
throughout the care process.

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Four Domains of Clinical Analytics
#4: Patient Engagement
The opportunity to reach out to patients for
appointment reminders and care updates
keeps the patient aware and involves the
patient as part of the care team.
Download document: Clinical Quarterly Analytics

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Clinical Analytics Guides Better Care
As healthcare data becomes more widely
available, clinical analytics will become
increasing vital to delivering better care.
Analytic insight from varied data sets helps
providers understand what is actually
happening compared to what they think
is happening and informs clinicians when
there is a better way to deliver care.

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Clinical Analytics Guides Better Care
Rimmasch closed by emphasizing how
critical adaptability is throughout the
clinical analytics journey.
Integrating analytics throughout the
entire care process will open leaders’
minds to new opportunities for
improvement.
View the full podcast: Click here
Audio only of the podcast: Click here

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For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

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Holly Rimmasch serves as the Chief Clinical Officer and SVP & GM, Clinical Quality
Business Unit at Health Catalyst. She brings more than three decades of healthcare
experience to her role, ranging from direct patient care to clinical and operational healthcare
strategy and management. Key areas of accountability include clinical improvement, patient
safety, quality, and population health. Prior to joining Health Catalyst, she had many roles
including the role of the Assistant VP at Intermountain Healthcare responsible for Clinical Services and
the system Clinical Operations Director for Cardiovascular and Intensive Medicine. At Intermountain and
Health Catalyst, Holly has held leadership roles enabling her to affect change at a system level. Holly
also co-founded and was a Principal in HMS, Inc, a healthcare strategic consulting firm focusing on
population health. She has spent the last 25 years dedicated to identifying opportunities through data
and analytics, implementing best practices, supporting adoption, and improving clinical, operational and
financial outcomes. Holly holds a Master of Science in Adult Physiology from the University of Utah and
a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Brigham Young University.
Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Holly Rimmasch

© 2021 Health Catalyst
Proprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing, analytics and outcomes-improvement
company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes improve clinical, financial, and operational
outcomes needed to improve population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data
warehouse (EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in
support of more than 65 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system
to forward-thinking physician practices.
Health Catalyst was recently named as the leader in the enterprise healthcare BI market in
improvement by KLAS and has received numerous best-place-to work awards including Modern
Healthcare in 2013, 2014, and 2015, as well as other recognitions such as “Best Place to work for
Millenials, and a “Best Perks for Women.”