Presentation from the South Carolina HFMA 2014 Fall Institute in Charleston.

2. ABOUT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
MEDICAL CENTER
• $2.3 Billion Annual
Healthcare Operating
Expenses (excludes
academics and research)
• $471.6 Million Annual
Sponsored Research
Budget
• $843.6 Million Annual
Charity Care,
Community Benefits,
and other Unrecovered
Costs

5. Freakonomics Radio - June 26, 2014

6. I never would have imagined that
it is an IT problem
that you simply cannot get the data you want.
We’ll spend three or six person months
just put together a data set
to do a basic analysis.

7. How can we
view the new
ICD-10 codes
in the revenue
reports?
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Hoch items
cha' choH.

8. Table
Field
Data Type
Primary Key
Record Normalization
Foreign Key
EDW
OLAP
OLTP
Cubes
Aggregation
Index
SQL View

9. SLIDES AND HELPFUL TERMS ARE
POSTED AT
TERMINALIQ.COM/BLOG/
ALSO POSTED TO LINKEDIN

10. IT’S 1 AM, DO
YOU KNOW
WHERE YOUR
DATA IS?

11. OLTP
• Online Tranaction
Processing
• Designed for adding,
deleting, and updating
individual pieces of data.
• Applications used by
operations will use OLTP.
OLAP
• Online Analytical
Processing
• Designed for selecting
data.
• Reporting systems and
data warehouses will
use OLAP.

12. IT’S 2 AM, DO
YOU WHO
YOUR DATA IS
WITH?

13. THE CURMUDGEON
• Advantages: They know the system, data,
and the history of how things came to be.
• Disadvantages: Won’t let others access
their data, let alone each anyone how to
do what they do because they are afraid
they will become unnecessary to the
organization.
• Strategies: Convince them you don’t
want to upset the status quo but that they
are your only hope. Give them something
more to do then pull the data like validate
it for reasonableness. Praise their
contributions and helpfulness in front of
their 1-ups.

14. THE NEWBIE
• Advantages: Wants to help and do a
good job.
• Disadvantages: Doesn’t know very
much and might act like they know
more than they do which can lead to
bad data.
• Strategies: Partner with the Newbie,
teach them what the data means to
operations. Invite them to your
meetings or give them an in-depth
tour of your area.

15. THE GURU
• Advantages: Knows the data and
operations. Can you get the data you
want the first time.
• Disadvantages: No time to get to
every request that comes their way.
• Strategies: Your goal is to become her
favorite end-user. Clearly define the
data you need, going back for multiple
iterations can be your death with the
Guru. If there is anything you can do
for them, do it.

16. THE IDIOT
• Advantages: None
• Disadvantages: They are slow, do a
half-assed job, and you have to
double-check their work.
• Strategies: Avoid the Idiot if you can.
If you can’t, figure out a way to at least
eliminate the slowness disadvantage.
Candy bars or cokes are often good
bribes.

18. MORE STRATEGIES
• Request forms for
standard(ish) data
needs.
• For ad-hoc requests,
have IT include a copy
of the query with the
data so you can easily
request it again later.
• For frequent data needs,
ask if reports can be
scheduled to run
overnight.
• Designate leads/experts
from both operations,
finance, IT, etc. to work
together on reporting
needs.

19. brad.adams@vanderbilt.edu
(615) 875-9554

20. The Art of Requesting Data from IT
Presented by Brad Adams
Helpful Terms
Term Definition
Aggregation Any time data is grouped or summarized. Many
user-friendly reporting systems will automatically
group and summarize data automatically.
Cubes Pre-summarized datasets that increase response
time of OLAP databases. When reporting from the
general ledger, performance would be greatly
improved by pre-summarizing monthly transitions by
account, month/year, and department.
Data Type Defines the acceptable inputs to a field. Common
data types include text, number, date, and time.
Field Similar to a column in a spreadsheet, it contains
information of a particular type (e.g., First Name).
Foreign Key A field that is a primary key in another table used
to create a relationship between tables.
Index Indexes are added to tables on one or more fields
to speed up random lookups and improve overall
performance and efficiency of the database.
Normalization Database design methodology to minimize data
redundancy by splitting data into it’s smallest useful
parts. Rather than have a single field for name, a
normalized database will have separate fields for
first, middle, last, and sometimes preferred and
maiden names. OLTP databases will typically be
normalized while OLAP not be fully normalized.
OLAP Online Analytical Processing is a database
architecture specializing in selecting information.
Reporting systems and data warehouses will
typically use an OLAP architecture.
OLTP Online Transaction Processing is a database
architecture specializing in adding, updating, and
deleting records but is not efficient in selecting
records (not good for reporting). Applications used
by operations (e.g., registration) will typically use
an OLTP architecture.
Primary Key A field or combination of fields that uniquely identify
a record in a table.
Record Similar to a row in a spreadsheet, in contains a
data set representing a single item.
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21. The Art of Requesting Data from IT
Presented by Brad Adams
Term Definition
SQL Structured Query Language (pronounced Sea-Quill)
is a common program language used to manipulate
databases. Many commercial database platforms will
have their own flavor of SQL such as pl/sql for
Oracle and T-SQL for Microsoft SQL Server.
Table A collection of fields and records. Think the rows
and columns of a spreadsheet.
View A saved query that can be accessed similiar to a
table.
EDW Enterprise Data Warehouse is where all of your data
should reside and should make it easy to get and
create useful, timely, reports.
Recommended Reading
I’ve purchased these two books for new team members multiple times and
highly recommend them to anyone who needs to better understand
databases. If you use the links below I’ll earn about $1 on each book.
• Database Design for Mere Mortals (3rd Edition) - Michael Hernandez
http://amzn.to/1CWMm18
• SQL Queries for Mere Mortals (3rd Edition) - Michael Hernandez
http://amzn.to/1rgXRLr
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