In recent years, regional managers and hospital managers have been challenged with huge pressure for higher quality, more effectiveness and a rising demand for increased digitalisation and use of data. At the same time, they are trying to lower health care costs. It seems like an impossible task, but it is not.

It is a huge struggle to add an analytic dimension to hospital management because it challenges decades of traditions at hospitals, where treatments have been based on research and clinical experience. However, the changes are a must. I am concerned that the health care sector underestimates the huge potential that is offered by digitalisation in the future. The Nordic health care sector needs the benefits of the digitisation from expert support systems, algorithms and artificial intelligence to succeed. Therefore, it must embrace behavioural changes, and the new technology driving them, to get the benefits.

Analytical insights create new possibilities

Today the explosion of data is creating new resources for the health care sector and hospitals, but its true value can only be realised with analytics. That does not mean that we do not need our health care professionals. We need them more than ever. But we need to change the working environment so their access to and use of even more data can be the foundation for better treatment and efficient leadership. If we succeed, health care professionals can spend more time with patients and automate boring procedures.

For hospital management, the decision to implement new analytical data systems is a complicated process, involving many groups in the organisation. How do you choose the best analytics tools? How can you be sure that implementing new systems or tools will be a success?

How can hospital management be sure that implementing new analytical data systems or tools will be a success? #HealthCare #Analytics Click To Tweet

At SAS my focus is to provide the best analytics software to the health care sector. My experience convinces me that health care leaders must be on top of the analytical wave and build their new analytical organisations now. This must be done to ensure future benefits, new insights and more possibilities. It needs to be done intelligently, including knowledge of analytics and an overview of the process from the beginning. What you need is to set goals, measure them, and get support from experienced experts in all aspects of the process.

Our future welfare in health care depends on well-established analytical organisations

At SAS we have been working with analysing tools for decades, and we have great experience in the health care sector worldwide. Health care management needs to build an analytical organisation now to prepare for the future. If you haven’t started by now, you should speed up and add the necessary expertise to your organisation to be on top of the analytical wave. That will lead to better welfare and to:

• Focused efforts
• Far fewer errors and readmission rates
• Less waste of resources
• Faster, time-sensitive decisions
• Efficient solutions and better outcomes