The purpose of analytics in a healthcare organization is to gain insights to improve a process to address an issue such as, improving clinical quality and patient safety or improving the health of a particular patient population. Analysts are responsible for gathering disparate data from different functional areas and develop a narrative so those driving change can take the information and make it actionable.
Organizations generally build one of two analytic reporting structures. One is a centralized model, where the analytics group is its own entity, independent of any particular group. The second is a decentralized model where the analysts work directly for the different groups or departments. In this way, the group does not have to compete for the attention of the analysts and the analysts’ sole focus is to serve those “customers” well. There is a third way, as well, that optimizes the strengths of both centralized and decentralized.