While predictive analytics strategy is imperative for all industries, skilled nursing has been impacted by Covid-19 to a dramatic degree. The exposure to analytics and the power to aggregate and analyze data in contact tracing, incident reporting, and statistical monitoring has delivered a new normal for the industry. Yet, the wealth of data already being generated throughout healthcare has never been leveraged to serve nursing homes for better operational efficiency.
What is “Predictive Analytics”?
Predictive analytics is the power to assemble data in a relevant way so that it tells a historical story, and based on that story and its continuing trends, can predict outcomes.
Integrating data silos combines data from different platforms and indicates business issues and business opportunities.
Take the case of a dietary manager in a skilled nursing facility. His top skills may be culinary mastery and managing a team of people. He’s given the tools to order his supplies – food, cleaning, disposables, etc. He’s given a budget based on expected census, (in many cases this can be a flat dollar amount that was projected nearly 6 months ago by the financial division). Coupled with multiple other platforms to manage his staffing needs, recipes, dietary guidelines…etc., he can become quite overwhelmed with the “systems” and may struggle with how to fit it all together for success.
A simple strategy to predict outcomes based on departmental data – employees, purchases, and the residents – empowers department managers to “control the controllable”.
Bringing all of his disparate data together with a business intelligence strategy will give him back control of the department’s success. Simply delivering an auto-adjusted budget based on the facility’s actual census as it fluctuates throughout the month, coupled with a declining budget, he will be able to discern his direction and feel empowered to meet the goals. Why is this important? If census goes down, he is delivered the adjusted budget dollars and declining balance for purchases through the month ensuring expenses are controlled. Likewise, if census increases, adjusted budget dollars increase, and orders adjusted for enough supplies to be certain he is taking excellent care of his customers. Without predictive analytics, his orders may be “his best guess” on needs and may fall short of budget expectations and stress his department’s commitment to excellence.
Employing this simple business intelligence strategy across all of your department heads will empower the facility to meet budget expectations.
All of your Department Managers want to succeed. With predictive analytics, auto adjusting budget dollars and “declining balance” can give them confidence to meet spending expectations.
What else can predictive analytics be used for?
Skilled nursing operators have a wealth of data that can be used to make course adjustments and get back on track to reach goals. Data gives you a historical view of “what happened” and “what’s happening right now”.
Predictive analytics identifies trends, alerts for problems, and offers opportunities to put data to use and strengthen favorable outcomes.
Our predictive analytics strategies can be applied to PBJ, census, cash flow, and accounts receivable, and many more.
Making sense of too much data
How many software platforms does it take to run a skilled nursing facility? Census/EHR, Payroll, Scheduling & PBJ, Culinary, Financial, … the list goes on. The result? Information overload. Yet, smart operators are taking these data silos and integrating them for their best benefit. By doing so, they are turning information overload into business opportunity. Prone 2 Dream Technologies has developed CORE – a business intelligence strategy that joins together your disparate data silos into a relevant order. Your data aggregated in one place —custom dashboards – where you have real time access to all the factors affecting your profitability. CORE gives you the ability to view fresh data on a daily basis – you can drill down into your daily activities and find the insights you need for actionable decisions – in minutes. You are able to monitor controllable expenses before they affect your bottom line. With CORE, you have the visibility to evaluate the course, identify direct influencers and evaluate course corrections as the data builds bringing stability to your profit margin.
How to apply a predictive analytics strategy
The key is consultation with our seasoned analyst who can assess your data stores – The why? The how did we get here? The what needs to change for us to reach our goal? Once your history has been evaluated and the goals identified, Prone 2 Dream Technologies can apply a predictive analytics strategy over that data. This includes integrating your data platforms into a centralized location, keeping them refreshed, where critical KPIs can be at your fingertips. Sound complicated? It’s not.