Change in healthcare is coming. That was the message exclaimed by speakers from Maine Medical Center, the University of Louisville, Neighborhood Health Plan of RI, and Creative Computing this past Wednesday at the first
New England Healthcare Analytics Conference, held at the Boston Prudential Center SAS office. In attendance at the event were some of the largest names in the region’s healthcare provider and payer industries, including Connecticut Hospital Association, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, Care New England Health System, Harvard Pilgrim, Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan, and others.
“We are saving lives using mathematics,” was a common theme throughout the event. Maine Medical Center, located in Portland, Maine, was perhaps in the best position to make this statement, having recently ranked in the top one percent nationally for treatment of heart attacks by the US Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In addition to the hard work of each staff and administration member, this ranking was made possible through the center’s use of innovative technologies. When Maine Medical Center first began using SAS Performance Management technology to assess the care provided, it was discovered that only 60% of patients were receiving all the evidence-based treatment that makes up the accepted standard of care. As a result of the technology, the hospital has recently hit 100% compliance, and this is what has helped the center to also rank as one of America’s Best Hospitals in the 2007
U.S. News and World Report, indicated Peter Chingos, Manager of Data Analysis for Maine Medical’s Center for Performance Improvement.
"The system allows physicians, departments, and the hospital to monitor performance and detect trouble early so we can take action and change behavior", said Rocket Wong, Business Intelligence Developer for Maine Medical’s Center for Performance Improvement.
For those at the event with backgrounds in applied mathematics, Dr. Patricia Cerrito, Professor of Mathematics from the University of Louisville, did not fail to impress when she presented a novel approach for analyzing ICD-9 codes to determine a patient severity index. The approach, which consists of viewing a set of ICD-9 codes as a string of text exclusively comprised of nouns, was first conceived by Dr. Cerrito as a way of addressing the flaws of logistic regression, a commonly-used method of diagnostic code analysis. Patient diagnosis, patient/provider compliance and profiling, medication effectiveness, and fraud are just some of the many areas the approach impacts. According to Dr. Cerrito, “Despite the acceptance of studies that use logistic regression as a technique to analyze ICD-9 codes, the assumptions of the technique are rarely held with respect to clinical data, making the analysis and respective conclusions drawn from it questionable, at the very least. The text-based mining method circumvents the weaknesses of this former approach.” Dr. Cerrito’s technique was first published during late 2007 in the textbook,
Emerging Technologies of Text Mining: Techniques and Applications, by H.A.D. Prado and E. Ferneda, New York: Big Idea Group.
One of the event’s goals was to assist organizations in strategizing how to radiate interest in applied statistics within the industry. Carlos Armas, Director of Medical Data Analytics for Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island (NHPRI), came to speak about challenges observed in implementing organization-wide analytical technologies to profile member risk and manage asthma/diabetes programs. However, Mr. Armas left feeling that he learned a whole new set of areas to apply the technology and generate even greater organizational excitement. “One of the largest questions we have faced is how we can leverage this technology to its fullest potential to improve care. This event helped open my eyes to many of the possibilities that we may not have previously thought about,” said Mr. Armas. NHPRI ranked 3rd best Medicaid HMO in
U.S. News and World Report 2007.
One of the event’s highlights occurred when presenter Timothy D’Auria demonstrated how data mining can be used to predict Emergency Room utilization. D’Auria, a certified EMT and published analytical thought-leader whose patented work has been incorporated into the educational programs of several American universities, used SAS and his own clinical patient notes to develop a mathematical model that could detect which patients would likely be utilizing the Emergency Room again in the upcoming year. Mr. D’Auria then demonstrated how these patients could be “mathematically assessed” to determine intervention priorities and suitability for asthma and diabetes programs.
The New England Healthcare Analytics Conference was first conceived by Mr. D’Auria, who serves as the SAS Analytics Practice Manager for Creative Computing, Inc. “Patient care is a collective concern shared by society; we are all patients at some point. When an opportunity to improve patient care goes overlooked or unnoticed, we all suffer. Analytics, particularly as made possible through SAS technology, offers us the capacity to improve care in new ways. By bringing the healthcare leaders of our area together to share their experiences in this field, we hope to radiate on the successes achieved by the early pioneers of this healthcare analytics movement,” says Mr. D’Auria.
While analytics may be leveraged to greatly improve healthcare, implementation of a robust analytical capacity may be challenging, particularly early on in such an endeavor. “We are finding that health organizations- both providers and payers – often don’t know where to start when it comes to implementing an analytical capacity that may include predictive modeling, as was shown here today,” says Ken Gustin, VP of Business Development at Creative Computing. “That is why we founded this analytics practice within our firm, so we can help healthcare organizations achieve the capabilities and ‘buy-in’ necessary to improve patient care and manage unnecessary health-related costs.”
Creative Computing, Inc, is a 17-year-old data and analytical consulting firm located in New England. Its dedicated SAS analytics practice specializes in assisting organizations in the health, health insurance, and life sciences
industries implement analytics to improve patient care, reduce unnecessary costs, and grow the industry to better serve the community.
Creative Computing, Inc. may be viewed online at: http://www.mycci.com.
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Contact:
Creative Computing
Maria Nolet
Maria.Nolet@mycci.com
Office: (401)-727-2400
Mobile: (401)-965-5355
Fax: (401)-727-4998
Locations:
Creative Computing, Inc.
100 Middle Street
Lincoln, RI 02865
