RSNA: The end of the information ageor just the beginning

With the help of progressive managers and IT pros, radiology and other specialties can leave the information age behind and start leveraging data to make models and predictions, empowering medical practices to enter the "age of analytics," according to a presentation given Nov. 29 at the 96th annual scientific meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The key to "empowering managerial enlightenment" and developing a more intelligent medical business is information metabolism—the quality and speed with which sites make use of the information about the department—according to presenter Paul G. Nagy, PhD, associate professor of radiology and director of quality and informatics research at the University of Maryland. Nagy believes that the information age of the late 90s and early 2000s was marked by mounting but neglected data and information on quality and performance. As part of the age of analytics, practices now need to begin making effective use of quality data to improve performance.

The problem has an IT solution. Nagy calls for the standardization of performance metrics and drilling down to analyze the data and use it to solve broad and specific problems. A department must first clearly define its goals; one way of doing so is to develop quality or key performance indicators (KPIs). IT dashboards can then be deployed to alert administrators to performance shortfalls—high wait-times, slow report turn-around time or poor quality images, for example.

Dashboards can be colorfully designed to illustrate a hospital or practice's performance numbers or juxtaposed to data tables from previous quarters or years to provide analytical comparisons for managers, administrators and workers themselves. The analysis and interpretation of the data must be a joint effort by IT and section heads, who can work together to identify patterns in the data, develop optimal quality plans and predict and model future performance. In most cases, in-house IT professionals can use data warehouse repositories and programs to automatically generate reports and forecasts at specified intervals for specific purposes.

Finally, Nagy recommends providing administrators as well as staff members with performance scorecards. In Nagy's opinion, or really that of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, "transparency changes culture." Whether shooting for culture transformation or catalyzed business metabolism, Nagy impels physicians and administrators to take note that "[e]motions don't win arguments; to fix problems, focus on data."