An Overview of Business Intelligence, Analytics, Data Science, and AI.
Review Healthcare Industry: The Impact of Business IntelligenceLinks to an external site.
Review The impact around data & analytics for the future of healthcareLinks to an external site.
The healthcare industry is a constantly changing environment with many complex systems around clinical care outcomes, day-to-day operations, decision making processes, and organizational strategic planning. Healthcare organizations have begun to implement business analytics to assist in decision making processes. Consider the following four key concepts of data analytics:
Descriptive analytics provides information about what has happened.
Diagnostic analytics provides information about why specific issues have occurred.
Prescriptive analytics provides information about what an organization should do in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.
Predictive analytics provides information about possible future outcomes.
Delen, Sharda, and Turban (2023) suggest, “Organizations both private and public are under pressures that force them to respond quickly to changing conditions and to be innovative in the way they operate. Such activities require organizations to be agile and to make frequent and quick strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, some of which are very complex. Making such decisions may require considerable amounts of relevant data, information, and knowledge” (p. 3).
Additionally, the ability to make quick decisions should occur in real time while understanding the need for computerized support systems to aid managerial decision-making processes.
In this week’s discussion, address the following with a minimum of 500 words:
Discuss three of the terms that are considered predecessors of analytics.
Discuss the concepts: descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics.
Explain why a healthcare organization would invest in analytics to predict the likelihood of falls by patients.
Describe the difference between data generation infrastructure providers and data management infrastructure providers.
Sample Answer
The healthcare industry in Kisumu, Kenya, like the rest of the world, is indeed a constantly evolving landscape. The increasing complexity of clinical care, operational demands, and strategic planning necessitates sophisticated tools for informed decision-making. Business analytics, with its various facets, is becoming an indispensable asset for healthcare organizations striving for agility and efficiency, as highlighted by Delen, Sharda, and Turban (2023).
Predecessors of Analytics
Before the term “analytics” became ubiquitous, several concepts laid the groundwork for its development, each contributing to the evolving understanding of how data could be leveraged for better decision-making. Three significant predecessors include:
- Decision Support Systems (DSS): Originating in the 1970s, DSS were among the earliest attempts to use computer-based systems to aid managerial decision-making. They were designed to help decision-makers compile useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions. Unlike fully automated systems, DSS aimed to support, rather than replace, human judgment. For instance, in a healthcare context, an early DSS might have helped a clinic manager analyze patient scheduling data to identify peak hours and optimize staff