Master Data Management

We are living in an incredible time where computers and technology have allowed us the ability to order groceries to our front doors, attend meetings by video with colleagues on other continents, communicate with space stations outside of our atmosphere, send money to our friends from our cellular devices, upload our resumes to hundreds of job applications with the click of a button, and yes, even have a food delivery service bring us dessert at 11:30 p.m. This is all made possible by data systems that receive, organize, and store our credit card information, addresses, names, and preferences.

The conveniences we have available to us are unprecedented, and there are no signs these resources are going to become less available and accessible as life after a pandemic is forever changed.

With advancement and progress, comes the potential for setbacks and error. Sadly, each year we see some well-known entity suffer from a security breach leaving millions of innocent consumers vulnerable. On a much smaller and more benign level, we’ve probably all received marketing materials for products we already own or would be completely inappropriate for us. Car insurance for a toddler, might be a little too soon! From banks to grocery stores, the methods companies use to manage their data can have significant impact on whether they are successful and stand the test of time or if they struggle and waste resources unnecessarily.

Master data management is the key to ensuring your data is organized, accessible, and safe when it needs to be.  

What is the importance of master data management?

Healthcare is one of the last industries where you hear the term MDM (Master Data Management) mentioned. Most IT industry analysts, software firms and consulting organizations are geared towards your typical company that sells products to people or businesses.

MDM examples are always showing a master list of products or cleansing your way to a consistent list of customers, which is not exactly the mindset of healthcare organizations. But lack of MDM is precisely what is adding untold costs on healthcare organizations (and ultimately on all of us) and inhibiting these organizations from improving the quality of health care services at an affordable cost.

Let’s divide the healthcare industry (simplistically) into insurers and providers (we will position pharmaceuticals, biotech and medical device companies as life sciences). Many of the large insurers have invested in data warehousing and data integration, but smaller insurers, i.e., regionally based HMOs (healthcare maintenance organizations) and healthcare providers, such as hospitals and physician groups, have fledgling efforts or have been bogged down in many of the issues below.

Healthcare organizations have significant data consistency issues regarding the following data subjects:

• Patients
• Physicians
• Procedures
• Diagnosis codes
• Service Rates
• Pay for Performance
• Compliance

Each insurer and each healthcare provider track this data differently. The problems are magnified because healthcare is regulated on a state-by-state basis along with federal and industry regulations. Throw in privacy and security concerns to worsen what healthcare groups need to deal with.

Most healthcare organizations, even large ones, are an affiliation of generally small physician groups. These groups may be your local doctor’s office, i.e., primary care physicians (PCP), specialists or emergency room (ER) providers. Often these groups do not have a lot of IT resources at their disposal.

Data flow is often flat file transfers between insurers and healthcare provider organizations, as well as from the individual physician groups and the larger provider organization. These flat files are generally not standardized and change each year when contracts are renegotiated between insurers and providers. This is an industry where you typically are not in control of your source data. It is thrown at you and you have to deal with it.

The need for an MDM is significant at healthcare organizations. The benefits from MDM are:

• Data consistency
• Productivity
• Enabling more cost effect patient care

It is remarkable when one looks at the number of resources devoted to manually dealing with inconsistent master data throughout health care. People in this industry do an amazing job of dealing with it, but it is often a time-consuming manual effort with much reconciliation. Having an MDM program would improve overall productivity and enable organizations to process and react more quickly to patients, insurers, employers and physicians.

A hidden jewel of an MDM effort though is enabling health care organizations to provide more proactive care. Healthcare providers can develop data solutions oriented to specific populations of patients who have diseases, chronic conditions or are at specific risks. These solutions may be for diabetes or asthma, for instance.

By bringing in historical clinical or demographic data related to patients tied together through consistent master data and taking advantage of predictive analysis, health care providers can proactively help their patients rather than waiting for the next episode when the patient’s health has worsened. Many insurers are linking capitation and pay for performance programs with these kinds of efforts because a healthier patient is a great goal by itself, but better health also means lower health care costs.

The MDM silver bullet product has not been invented for healthcare industry, but these organizations should not despair. There are concrete steps these organizations need to take.

1.  First, healthcare organizations need to examine where they are spending their resources on handling inconsistent master data          and focus their efforts on those areas.

2. Second, the efforts need to be in collaboration with business operations, physicians, insurers and IT, and need to involve defining      master data and performance metrics.

3. Finally, such organizations need to leverage their data warehousing and data integration efforts.

What is a master data management strategy?

Wondering if your organization can benefit from a master data management review? At Kona Kai Corp, we have a team of BI/Analytics experts analyzing, architecting, designing and maintaining data to ensure your systems are successful We will begin by making a map your data flow. Once we have that information, we will evaluate the structure you are currently utilizing. From there we will Identify and define the source of truth. Once we know what the data is and what the shortfalls are with your current system, we will collaborate with you to optimize performance. We do not just stop there, but we will also collaborate with you to gain insight as to how your data may be used in the future. Finally, we will end by setting up your data owners, and we will help you set up a strong data governance committee and processes for data use and growth.

Click here to begin your evolution. Call us at 602-228-8230 or email us at info@konakaicorp.com to revolutionize the management of your data, one byte at a time.