This document discusses the challenges and opportunities of healthcare analytics from UPMC's perspective. It notes that healthcare analytics is expensive and difficult due to the complexity of healthcare data and systems. However, UPMC has heavily invested in technology and leverages that investment across its organization. Healthcare analytics aims to gain new insights not previously possible from paper records alone and generate hypotheses without preconceived notions. This can help understand patient sharing patterns, regional population health issues, and how patients move between chronic disease clusters. The document warns that while big data creates new opportunities, it also risks consuming the information it produces if not approached carefully.

1. Pamela Peele, Ph.D.
Chief Analytics Officer
UPMC Health Plan
UPMC Enterprises
Why is Healthcare Analytics so €xpen$ive and Hard?
Is it worth it?

4. UPMC Invests Heavily in Technology and Leverages the Investment Across
the Organization
Heinz Field
PNC Park
Park
Consol Energy
Center
Total Cost of all 3 Stadiums: $833M
Confidential – Do Not Duplicate

5. A little IT Housekeeping: The Kitchen

6. Ready to Cook

7. Now We’re Cooking

8. WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO SOLVE WITH ANALYTICS?

9. • A measure of Clairvoyance
– New knowledge not previously possible from
paper
• Learning what isn’t known.
– Hypothesis free approaches to problems.
Clairvoyance: The Promise of Big Data

10. Provider Network Plot
10

11. Provider Patient Sharing Patterns
11

12. Division of Health Economics (DOHE)Topology of Disease – Regional Population Health
Geographic Sectors
Western PA Cities 10,000+ Pop
12

13. Understanding the depth of chronic illness
(or donors)

14. UPMC Hospitals and Catchment Areas within Geographic Regions

15. All Hospitals and Catchment Areas within Geographic Regions

16. UPMC PCPs
within Geographic Regions

17. NonUPMC PCPs
within Geographic Regions

18. Wrestling with Data

19. The “Transaction” Problem in Healthcare

20. Common Methods
Finance/Banking, Retail, Casinos, Services
Transactional
Homogeneous
Tightly Standardized
Time Series
Health Care
Transactional
Heterogenetic
Loosely Standardized

21. The Hardest Problem in Healthcare

22. Who Moves Between Chronic Disease Clusters

23. WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO SOLVE WITH ANALYTICS?

24. The Danger of Big Data

25. This is Not the Solution

26. An information-rich environment creates a
scarcity of what it consumes.
Herb Simon (1971)
The Dangers of Big Data