Guardian doubled in size over a short period due to acquisition and organic growth. Gaining a unified view across practices, departments, locations, and acquisitions required manual effort (and long weekends). The organization faced several critical challenges:
Scaling Limitations According to Lee Jones, VP of Data Analytics, “The post-acute healthcare industry is always looking to improve the clinical outcomes of our patients. You need better insights that are patient-impacting to drive those outcomes, and we simply couldn’t scale under the sheer manual effort required. We needed data acquisition expertise that we didn’t have on staff at the time.”
Manual Data Correlation Guardian needed better visibility faster. “Correlating data from diverse platforms through Excel and v-lookups was simply not viable.”
Covid Risk Detection Guardian needed a more efficient way to detect Covid risk in order to stay one step ahead of potential outbreaks across their facilities.
Limited EMR Insights While their EMR offered some reporting on clinical outcomes, Guardian needed greater insight into referrals, admissions, discharges, payor types, outcomes by personnel, and other critical operational metrics that weren’t readily available.
To find the right BI partner, Guardian initiated an RFI looking at 8 key factors: industry experience; team size; turnaround time; architecture standards; training and support; security; data modeling experience; and cost. Blue Margin Inc. was “by far the top candidate.”
Data Infrastructure Development Blue Margin (BMI) worked with the Guardian team to implement data connectors (ETL) and a data warehouse for all relevant EMR data, creating a unified view across all 65 locations.
Azure Training and Enablement BMI trained Guardian’s resources on data connections and modeling in Azure, empowering the internal team to take ownership of their data infrastructure.
Custom Dashboard Development Created dashboards that alert the team hourly on vitals that trigger a Covid test, replacing a report that previously took 30 hours to generate.
Comprehensive Support BMI provided ongoing training and support to ensure Guardian’s team could maximize their data capabilities and work independently.
Guardian rates itself a 9/10 at being data driven across operations, finances, and outcomes. The impact of data intelligence has been far-reaching across the organization.
Real-Time Covid Monitoring “Our data gives us insights competitors don’t have, such as dashboards that alert the team hourly on vitals that trigger a Covid test, a report that previously took us 30 hours to generate,” reports Richard Howard, Sr. BI Analyst.
Above National Benchmarks According to Lee Jones, “We’re able to remain above national benchmarks thanks to our data. We can analyze complex insurance issues and manage patients and payors more efficiently.”
Workforce Optimization “Most importantly, our data allows our people to work at the top of their skillsets, rather than focusing on the wrong priorities or manually creating reports, increasing productivity and employee satisfaction.”
Competitive Advantage The unified data visibility provides Guardian with insights competitors don’t have, enabling better clinical outcomes, financial management, and operational efficiency across all 65 locations.
Scalable Growth Guardian can now seamlessly integrate new acquisitions and locations into their data infrastructure without the manual effort that previously created bottlenecks.
By partnering with Blue Margin, Guardian Healthcare transformed from struggling with manual data processes to achieving a 9/10 data-driven rating across their organization. The success of this project demonstrates:
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