2015 priority guide for healthcare cios -...

2015 Priority Guide for Healthcare CIOs ICD-10 transition FAQs, essential mobile security best practices, and former BI obstacles we can move past

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2015 Priority Guide for Healthcare CIOs

Contents

The top six priorities of a new healthcare CIO

Outgoing AHIMA President Angela Kennedy talks 2015 priorities

FAQ: How will the transition to ICD-10 codes affect health IT?

Best practices for mobile healthcare security

Five former obstacles healthcare BI can move past

What are the challenges and opportunities facing health IT leaders in 2015? For most healthcare IT organizations in the U.S., resources are still dedicated mostly to meeting evolving federal health IT regulations. At some point, health IT should be getting back to business as usual, or as they like to put it, "keeping the lights on." Upgrading old hardware. Modernizing backups. Moving data into the cloud. Fitting in projects like VNAs. But it doesn't look like that will be happening anytime soon. As the first round of HIPAA audits approach, data breaches remain pervasive. And with the ICD-10 deadline happening on October 15, 2015 -- the conversion can’t be put off any longer. In this essential guide, learn more about effectively evaluating your IT department, managing ICD-10 implementation within your organization, 7 mobile security best practices, and more.

The top six priorities of a new healthcare CIO Reda Chouffani Settling into an unfamiliar office is just the beginning of the changes a healthcare CIO will experience when joining a new organization. CIOs will be challenged by the personal and organizational adjustments they will oversee. They will lean on their experience within healthcare IT, leadership and change management to guide themselves and their department. When an IT executive, such as a CIO, enters a new IT department to either rescue it or

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incorporate it into an existing one, there are several crucial areas they should focus on to ensure a successful transition. For most people, entering a new IT shop can be overwhelming. Maintaining business as usual while simultaneously improving the department's performance ranks high on everyone's priority list. But for most successful and confident IT executives, there is a methodology that guides their takeover of a technology group. After working closely with a CIO for more than a month, I identified the following key takeaways on how to ensure a successful transition, while minimizing interruptions and culture shock. There are six areas on which healthcare CIOs focus when they evaluate an IT department. Carefully monitor performance in the following places to create a constructive impact on an organization and reflect positively on the IT department. Cultural adjustment: Fitting in and adjusting to office dynamics is a major part of any move into a different organization. To ensure a smooth transition and alignment with executives and the IT department, new CIOs should focus on getting to know the culture of the organization and its mission statement. In addition, they should learn the organization's history -- specifically, what worked and what didn't in the past. Resolution of immediate issues: There are several reasons organizations seek new IT leadership for a hospital. An unforeseen termination, retirement, catastrophic failure of IT management or a misalignment of business values are prime examples of why a hospital might choose to replace all or part of its IT management team. A new healthcare CIO must immediately bring changes to the IT department to improve its reputation if the change in management was due to substandard departmental performance. One way to stabilize the group's performance is to resolve all existing issues. Strategic assessment and gap analysis: New healthcare CIOs usually take inventory of all current team members when joining a company. By gaining a good understanding of the fabric of their IT team, an IT executive can gauge the capabilities and limitations of the team to ensure that any

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performance gaps are addressed. An IT executive should also carry out the following three core components of a gap analysis to identify any organizational weaknesses:

• Define strategic goals by evaluating existing technology and interviewing key employees within the different organizational units.

• Determine the state of the organization by evaluating the current standing of technology initiatives and how each relates to IT goals.

• Create an action plan based on findings from the previous two core components to help IT achieve the overall strategic goals for itself and the organization.

Change management: Convincing an organization to adjust to alternate ways of doing things is one of the most challenging aspects of a new CIO's job. Newly appointed IT executives must rally team members and reenergize them to gain support for upcoming plans. These changes might extend to other business units outside of the hospital. Incoming healthcare CIOs should share previous successes they've achieved in other organizations to convince new co-workers of the validity of their plans.

Stability of the environment: Organizational stability should be maintained during times of significant change. This starts with gaining employees' trust and foreseeing any issues that may sprout under a new leadership's direction. Optimization: During this stage, the new IT leadership lays out changes that need to be made to boost the performance of technology used by the hospital's IT department. By applying subtle changes based on observation and previous successes, small improvements can be seen without significant disruption to existing workflows. Managing the expectations for the IT department to improve the performance of other departments is at the top of many IT executives' agendas. For many new CIOs and technology executives, coming into a hospital and getting acclimated to the culture can be challenging and intimidating. Still, many have successfully made the transition and changed their organizations for

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the better. Due to budget and reimbursement cuts, today's IT departments have to get creative to provide the tools and support their organizations need to be successful.

Outgoing AHIMA President Angela Kennedy talks 2015 priorities Shaun Sutner At the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Convention and Exhibit in San Diego, SearchHealthIT talked with Angela Kennedy, the departing AHIMA president and chairman, about data governance, interoperability, ICD-10, and how health information management directors can best work with CIOs. Shaun Sutner: Hi, I’m Shaun Sutner, reporter and writer for SearchHealthIT. I’m here with Angela Kennedy, board president and chairman of AHIMA, the American Health and Information Management Association. We’re here at AHIMA’s 2014 Convention and Exhibit in San Diego. So welcome, Angela. Angela Kennedy: Hi Shaun, thanks for having me this afternoon. Great to be here. Sutner: Our pleasure. Angela, can you tell our readers, who are mainly CIOs and HIM directors, what you think are the hottest topics at this year’s show and on AHIMA’s agenda for 2015? ICD-10 has been and continues to be at the forefront of people’s minds, but what other hot-button issues are on your mind at the end of 2014, going into next year? Obviously data governance is a hot topic, and what are the implications for patient safety in data governance? Kennedy: Absolutely. That’s a big question, but I think we’ll start at the top. I think everybody’s pretty much buzzing now about information governance and how to go back to their facilities and assess their organization for readiness, and so that seems to be a topic that I’ve been getting a lot of questions about today, as well as interoperability. In terms of CIOs and how

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they work with their HIM practitioners on readiness for ICD-10, you know, they’re ready. I spoke with a CIO this morning that told me she works one-on-one with her HIM director daily, and that it is a collaborative effort to educate everyone across the organization, and I was speaking with another practitioner today, and I was asking them about HIPAA and how those changes were impacting them and you know, they said, “Well there’s some impact there, however meaningful use is really the big touch point we’re working on right now. HIPAA is basically standard, and we’re moving along with that.” But it’s education, education, education across the organization on all those topics, making sure everybody’s ready and communication is occurring back and forth to put these systems in place whether it be information governance or compliance with HIPAA, or getting meaningful use out the door, so to speak. Sutner: Okay, so in particular, with information governance becoming so important, can you explain how IT staffs at large healthcare systems, large practices and ACOs can benefit from progress in information governance? Kennedy: Absolutely. Well information governance is not really a program. It is something that you put in place, and it is going to govern your data from creation to management to storage to deletion, and every step in the way. And the education, you know, you have to have good data going in. Put it in once, use it many times. If you do that, and you have the appropriate governance policies in place, where you’re not – you don’t want to work in silos. So when you look at information governance, you know, it’s not that you have to focus on privacy and security for HIPAA and maybe you have to work on meaningful use outcomes. If governance is in place, all of those things are out of those silos, because you’re governing data across the enterprise and not just for one project or one legislative mandate. So in terms of working with CIOs, again, it’s educating the organization, it’s putting it out there, making it a priority. And if we go back to my initial comment that I had, you know, clean data. In once, in the right way, and then what we pull out for analytics is going to be used many times, and we know that we can make good data-driven decisions.

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Sutner: Okay, as for ICD-10, how can healthcare providers best use this year of extra time, and could you comment on the arguments of those that still believe that it will be costly to go to ICD-10 and that payers will find more reasons to reject claims? Kennedy: Well, we know that there are studies there that really detail the costs of ICD-10, so I won’t get into that, but our practitioners are ready for ICD-10. We’re ready for ICD-10. There are obvious implications for population health there, you know, if we look at Ebola, there’s currently no ICD-9 code that would address that, and there is for 10. And there are many other reasons. We’re ready. I think probably in the last stages, we have CIOs and HIM directors looking at the dual coding process, and that’s where you’ll see some activity, as well as just working with educating physicians in the medical community on the importance and the impact ICD-10 will have on continued patient care and continuity of care, really across all providers and all settings. Sutner: Is there a coder shortage, and how does the industry best deal with that? Kennedy: Hm, that’s a good question. That one’s a little harder to address. Depending on where you live and where you work, yes, coders could be a little bit more difficult to put in place for you. I think that you’re going to see those shortages increase the closer we move to I-10 and the more demand we have for dual coding, and the more we need qualified professionals in place for not just coding, but also clinical documentation improvement. To say there’s a coder shortage right now here today, that’s a really hard question to answer, so I won’t go down that road with you, but I can say that the implementation of ICD-10, there will be an increased demand for coders. You know, I’m an educator and we have students that graduate and we can put them in a coding job immediately if they’ll take it, and there’s always people asking me personally, “Do you have any coders?” And I think I hear that, you know from an AHIMA, big-picture standpoint. I hear that a lot. “Where are the coders? How can we get coders?” I think that’s also where you’re going to see diversity among practitioners, and so you’re going to have your traditional HIM coder and then you’re going to see a lot of nurses

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and other healthcare practitioners in that space doing that work. And, you know, that’s pretty much commonplace right now to see that occur. We have a lot of diversity among our coding community. Sutner: How are HIM people dealing with HIPAA compliance, particularly the new Omnibus rule, and both patient access and privacy? Kennedy: Well, you know, when I’ve talked to practitioners, that was one of the questions that I was asking someone just a few moments ago and they said you know, it’s really just business as usual. We have been committed to HIPAA for some time, so if you’re following the rules and everybody’s educated on you know, privacy and security, then, you know, you just mitigate your risk, you make sure that everyone knows what should happen across the organization, and so you’re not really seeing it as, well from an HIM perspective, extra work or an additional burden. What I’ve been hearing are most of them are really focused on meaningful use. Sutner: Okay, thanks for sitting down with me. That was a stimulating discussion. I appreciate your time, and hopefully I’ll see you next year in New Orleans. _____________________________________________________________ FAQ: How will the transition to ICD-10 codes affect health IT? SearchHealthIT As of Oct. 1, 2015, U.S. health care providers must use ICD-10 codes when they submit medical claims. This FAQ addresses what the transition means and how providers can prepare. While most of the world is using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Edition, or ICD-10, to describe diseases and morbidity and mortality data, the United States continues to use ICD-9, which was published more than three decades ago, for morbidity data and Medicare and Medicaid claims. The U.S. remains the only developed nation in the world still using ICD-9.

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To that end, the Department of Health & Human Services has mandated a migration to ICD-10 codes by Oct. 1, 2015. The timeline has been pushed back twice from a more aggressive 2011 deadline, but the process still is expected to be difficult, because ICD-10 contains nearly 10 times as many codes as ICD-9. The process also requires a transition to version 5010 of the electronic health standards for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) transactions. The consequences are high for failing to convert to ICD-10: Medical claims submitted after Oct. 1, 2015, will be rejected if they don't use the appropriate ICD-10 codes. Fortunately, federal agencies as well as nongovernmental organizations are on the case: Best practices and ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion tools are now available. What is the ICD? The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, published by the World Health Organization (WHO), uses unique alphanumeric codes to identify known diseases and other health problems. According to WHO, the ICD helps store and retrieve diagnosis information and compile national mortality and morbidity statistics. The ICD was known initially as the International List of Causes of Death when the International Statistical Institute adopted it in 1893. (According to WHO's history of the development of the ICD, the classification system at that point had officially been in development for four decades, and could trace its roots to the work of 17th-century London demographer John Graunt.) When WHO was created in 1948, responsibility for the ICD, then in its sixth revision, was transferred to the new organization. WHO has revised the ICD four times since 1948.The most recent versions, ICD-9 and ICD-10, were completed in 1979 and 1992 respectively. Another revision, known as ICD-11, currently is in beta.

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Have individual countries made any changes to the ICD? With the blessing of WHO, several countries, including Australia, Canada, France and Germany, have made modifications to ICD-10 to accommodate procedure codes. In the United States, the National Center for Health Statistics has expanded ICD-9 and ICD-10 to cover morbidity statistics as well as procedure codes.

• For ICD-9, this is known as the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM), which comprises two volumes of diagnosis codes and one volume of procedure codes.

• For ICD-10, there are two classifications, one for clinical modification (ICD-10-CM), the other for procedure coding systems (ICD-10-PCS) developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). ICD-10-CM is intended to replace the first two volumes of ICD-9-CM, while ICD-10-PCS will replace the third volume of ICD-9-CM.

What versions of the ICD are currently in use?

ICD-10, the most recent iteration of the coding system, is used throughout the world; more than 100 countries use it for reporting deaths, and about two dozen also use ICD-10 codes for reimbursement and resource allocation. Its earliest adopters include the Nordic countries, which began a four-year ICD-10 implementation in 1994, and the United Kingdom, which began using the standard in 1995. ICD-10 contains 22 chapters, each of which defines a different set of conditions or diseases. Providers in the United States use ICD-10 to report mortality data, but still use ICD-9-CM to report morbidity data and to complete Medicare and Medicaid claims. Neither ICD-10-CM nor ICD-10-PCS is currently in use, nor will they be used before Oct. 1, 2014. Not surprisingly, ICD-9 is outdated. According to the CMS history of ICD-9-CM, the existing standard is rigid, inexact and not descriptive enough, in addition to being obsolete. For example, codes for a combination defibrillator-pacemaker device do not appear in the cardiovascular chapter of ICD-9-CM,

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which includes codes for defibrillator and pacemaker devices separately. In addition, as the American Medical Association (AMA) pointed out, chapters pertaining to complex body systems filled quickly, meaning that new codes for cardiac systems were assigned to the chapter initially reserved for the eye. What are the advantages of using ICD-10 instead of ICD-9? While ICD-9-CM contains about 13,000 diagnosis codes, which for the most part are three- to five-digit numbers, ICD-10-CM has more than 68,000 codes made up of seven alphanumeric characters. (ICD-10 in its entirety contains more than 140,000 codes.) In this manner, the American Association of Professional Coders (AAPC) noted in its ICD-10 FAQ, a single code can refer to a disease and its current manifestation. A single code also can express laterality, noting that a condition is on the left or right side of the body. The United States' move to ICD-10 is expected to streamline the process by which health care providers submit medical claims, and result in fewer coding mistakes, less need for supporting documentation and as a result, fewer requests for additional information after a claim has been submitted. Other benefits, according to an ICD-10 implementation overview presentation by CMS, include better sensitivity in refining grouping and reimbursement methods, and improvements to public health surveillance. What challenges faces U.S. organizations making the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion? The additional characters in the ICD-10 codes provide many types of key information -- for example, the body system, root operation, body part and device involved in a particular procedure -- but they also make it necessary to expand the data fields in all applications that use the ICD codes. Because ICD-10 codes must be used on all transactions containing HIPAA-protected patient data -- including outpatient claims with dates of service, and inpatient claims with dates of discharge -- they permeate numerous applications, including medical billing software, electronic health record

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(EHR) technology, practice management software and revenue cycle management systems. After Oct. 1, 2015, claims from hospitals and providers will be categorically rejected if they don't use the correct ICD-10 codes, and delayed reimbursements will result. For hospitals and providers, the delay will create a backlog; for smaller organizations, the delay could mean they will go out of business. The time crunch is so tight that coders proficient in ICD-10 are in high demand, a scenario being compared to the hunt for COBOL programmers in the years leading up to Y2K. It certainly does not help that an organization's ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion must occur at the same time it has to meet other federally mandated deadlines, including those for implementing EHR technology and demonstrating its meaningful use, as the publication Health Management Technology pointed out in its ICD-10 implementation roadmap. However, health care providers can take some solace in the fact that the annual update to the ICD-9 and ICD-10 code sets scheduled for Oct. 1, 2011, will be the final one for three years. ICD-9 and ICD-10 updates will be partially frozen for 2013 and 2014; the lone updates will be done to capture new technologies or diseases. This does not change the Oct. 1, 2015, deadline for achieving ICD-10 compliance. What’s the best way to conduct an ICD-10 conversion? If one considers the Health Management Technology's aforementioned ICD-10 roadmap, as well as the AMA's advice, one arrives at a nine-step process for carrying out the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion:

1. Identify all systems and processes, electronic as well as manual, in which ICD-9 is used. These will include practice management, clinical documentation, EHR systems and quality reporting.

2. Approach practice management software vendors about their plans to address the transition and about their timelines for upgrading that software. Keep in mind that certain upgrades will be covered in annual maintenance contracts.

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3. Likewise, talk to clearinghouses, billing services and payers about when they will be upgrading. Also ask if implementing ICD-10 codes will require changes to contracts.

4. Establish an ICD-10 steering committee, with at least one C-level executive as a member, that will assess the business processes, clinical workflows and IT systems affected by the conversion.

5. Pinpoint staff training needs. This includes obtaining materials, establishing a timeline and choosing a training format.

6. Assess ICD-10 readiness, and assess the financial impact of ICD-10 on reimbursement processes.

7. Draft an ICD-10 implementation budget. This should include system changes, business process changes, resource materials and training.

8. Implement a remediation roadmap, with changes and other new processes continually evaluated along the way.

9. Ask payers, clearinghouses and other partners to conduct a test to make sure they can, in fact, accept ICD-10 codes. Try to test each transaction that involves the swapping of ICD-10 codes.

When it comes time to map the codes, a variety of applications are available.

• The AAPC hosts an ICD-10-CM code translator on its website.

• As the ICD-10 Watch blog indicated in a recent post, software vendors are rolling out ICD-10 applications for smartphones and tablet PCs that can look up codes or convert ICD-9 to ICD-10.

• CMS has embarked on a project to convert Medicare severity diagnosis-related groups (MS-DRG) to ICD-10 codes, and also offers tools called General Equivalence Mappings, or GEMs, for clinical modification and procedure coding systems.

However, as both ICD-10 Watch and CMS have noted, these applications are intended largely for one-off situations. Practice management software or specific ICD-10 remediation systems will do the bulk of the work, and GEMs should not be viewed as a substitute for learning how to code with ICD-10.

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What is version 5010, and how is it related to ICD-10? Along with the ICD-10 implementation, CMS is mandating a transition, effective Jan. 1, 2012, to version 5010 of electronic transaction standards under HIPAA. This transition is necessary because version 4010 of the standards originally named in HIPAA, which was passed in 1996, are outdated and cannot accommodate ICD-10. According to the AMA's version 5010 page, the process of upgrading from version 4010 is fairly similar to the process for the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion:

• Find out when upgrades from practice management software vendors, clearinghouses, billing services and payers will be completed.

• Identify workflow changes and staff training needs.

• Test version 5010 transactions internally and externally.

Organizations that have completed the move to version 5010 can begin to use the standard before the Jan. 1, 2012 deadline, provided that their clearinghouse, payers and other partners are ready too.

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Best practices for mobile healthcare security Reda Chouffani The flexibility in care workflows, improved productivity for practitioners, and timely access to data are encouraging many providers to continue to give patients mobile access to their health records. On the flipside, opening mobile access poses significant data security risks to IT departments. When IT adopts a new bring your own device (BYOD) policy, it affords users the opportunity to use their mobile devices to gain access to health information. This challenges the IT department to keep users' data secure and maintain HIPAA compliance -- particularly when the devices in use are not owned by the hospital.

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Data breaches not only endanger patient's personal information, but may also subject an organization to criminal implications and monetary fines. In order to avoid data breaches, IT must ensure the implementation of strong healthcare mobile security practices. Protect the devices The security of mobile devices can also be compromised by loss and theft. It's nearly impossible to ensure a device won't fall into the wrong hands. Healthcare organizations must take precautionary steps to protect data in the event that a device goes missing. Some methods to accomplish this include remote wiping and locking, as well as tracking the device through GPS to locate and recover it. Encrypt the data Patient data that is accessed from mobile devices is likely stored remotely. The information is usually sent to smartphones or mobile devices from a server located in a secure facility, behind firewalls. Information that travels wirelessly and is stored within mobile devices can still pose a security risk if left unencrypted. It is a mobile healthcare security best practice to encrypt the sensitive health information while it's being transferred, as well as while it's at rest. This will help mitigate any leakage and offer strong data protection to ensure compliance. Restrict and control access Mobile devices must follow access control processes and procedures similar to restrictions seen within the world of desktops and laptops. This means only users with appropriate authorizations can gain access to protected data on mobile devices, and only IT has adequate tools to audit and manage all users' permissions. Contain certain apps and data With most healthcare professionals using their mobile devices for a mix of personal and business use, it's challenging for IT to implement restrictions without causing end users to feel locked out of their devices. It is critical that mHealth apps that capture patient data stay isolated and protected from other tools or apps within mobile devices to avoid putting patient data at risk.

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To solve this issue, many hospitals and Fortune 500 companies have implemented app and data containment. This is done by running mobile apps separately from all other apps to prevent sensitive data from being copied or penetrated. Creating this separation between personal data and healthcare data reassures IT that patient data can be protected with the right BYOD policy. Use strong policies and education One of the best methods to improve the security of sensitive data within mobile devices is through user education. While users will have the best intentions at heart, implementing clear policies and procedures that define what can and can't be done on the devices is the surest way to avoid any gray areas. Some of the common requirements applied to accessing enterprise networks and health information are:

• The use of a passcode to access information on the device

• The use of application containment for all enterprise or health apps

• The IT department is notified when a device is lost or stolen

• Denying the sideloading of apps and device jailbreaking

• Unauthorized users are restricted from accessing a device while a healthcare app is in use

Failure to implement some of these processes can put patients’ health information at risk. Implementation of mobile protection tools It is a common practice for IT to roll out antivirus and antimalware tools on employees' desktops. Unfortunately, with the increasing number of infections targeted at mobile devices, IT must recommend or even require end users to deploy tools to protect mobile devices against viruses and malware. An IT department can leverage a mobile device management platform to monitor and report any infections or risks affecting compromised mobile devices.

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Install only trusted mobile apps Not all available apps offer guaranteed data encryption. Vendors like Apple, Google and Microsoft do not validate or look for data encryption. This leaves IT solely responsible to work with app developers to ensure data encryption is available and enabled. End users are continuously purchasing new devices and using new platforms and apps within the healthcare space to access protected health information. It is a challenge for IT departments to keep up with these changes and offer end users the flexibility to use their mobile devices while still ensuring all of their data is protected. With the selection of a robust mobile device management platform, and deployment of many of the highlighted best practices, it can be possible to secure health data on mobile devices. _____________________________________________________________ Five former obstacles healthcare BI can move past Reda Chouffani Hospital CIOs continue to look to analytics and healthcare business intelligence to hold steady amid shrinking reimbursements and to meet demands to cut costs while improving patient care. Data mining is a favored method for many executives as means to measure, track and enhance their business performance. Whether it is by reviewing historical trends, performing accurate forecasting, or improving patient outcomes, healthcare business intelligence (BI) platforms offer an opportunity for CIOs to achieve some of their organizational objectives. Unfortunately, some health IT executives still face significant internal resistance to getting everyone to view these analytics and healthcare BI tools as worthwhile. Despite the popularity of BI tools and big data analytics, there are a number of common challenges preventing their adoption. Many objections voiced by executives and other staff can be attributed to resistance to change or being

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misinformed about how these tools help achieve departmental goals. Below are five common myths about why organizations are resistant to adopt these platforms, and why they should reconsider their stance based on BI moving past these challenges. Myth one: Tracking BI data is too complex A common explanation of why a medical practice has not adopted some of the dashboards available through their EHR vendors is that their navigational complexity requires time to learn. Implementation of BI must start with the strong belief that greater visibility into data gives an organization better insight into how effectively it operates. This mindset affords companies the chance to improve areas in which their BI tools show they are weak. While it can seem intimidating at first, tracking dashboards, scorecards and key performance indicators is relatively simple and consistent once they are customized. Seeking visibility of logistics, patient care, billing and staff productivity is the responsibility of a person, but the technology used must present meaningful data that is relevant to its viewer. Myth two: Dashboards are only for executives Speedometers and temperature gauges are available to all car owners, not just racecar drivers. Similarly, everyone within an organization -- not just upper management -- must be able to measure the effectiveness of their department's work using business dashboards. With such tools, billing representatives can monitor their individual progress based on the timeliness of filed claims and collections, while nurses can monitor patients' feedback based on survey results. Physicians can also leverage clinical responses to track and measure patient outcomes and ensure the right care is delivered. Myth three: Analytics apply to only a few systems Open source is popular, and open architecture rewards software developers. Long gone are the days in which organizations attempt to hide their data from outsiders. Even some of the biggest EHR vendor systems that maintain extreme security offer a path to perform data mining and analytics. Regardless of the format, most BI tools are able to process large amounts of data and offer insights to users. With the addition of new data processing capabilities, data can be analyzed even when it is in an unstructured format,

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such as in transcriptions, progress notes and other data points. This shift has opened the door for new analytics capabilities that tap into far more data and deliver more value to users. Myth four: BI processing takes too long Historically, it was common for systems to push data sets to secondary systems overnight in order to perform data manipulating and processing offline and deliver the summaries later. Fortunately, those delays are no longer required by most of today's systems. With scalable processing power and robust storage platforms, many modern systems are able to deliver near real-time analytics. This feature allows users of BI tools to gain insight into relevant data points and help them make business decisions more quickly. Myth five: End users can’t easily interact with BI platforms Too many BI conversations start with: "What types of dashboards do you need to have in front of you?" Instead, the discussion should start by asking: "How do you currently track and measure the effectiveness of your department?" The second question homes in on what the group requires to be successful. Once that information is established, BI tools are only a means to represent the data and make it available quickly. Today's marketplace offers far more self-service functionality than ever before. Putting the end users in the driver seat enables them to tinker with their dashboards and reporting. This drives more adoption of BI platforms and reduces the demand on IT to customize reports. End users know better than anyone what they need to monitor their progress. BI platforms continue to improve by becoming more intelligent and data-aware. The healthcare industry can deploy these platforms to get closer to meeting its aggressive goals. ACOs are one group in particular that could benefit from implementing healthcare BI tools. First, they must find a way to offset the cost and data silo challenges commonly -- though often mistakenly -- associated with BI.

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