Utilizing Medical Practice Data

Often my articles talk about gathering and analyzing data for your practice. But with so much to look at sometimes it can get overwhelming. Utilizing your data to make business decisions should be simplified as much as possible.

There are several ways to best analyze your business data. You can utilize multiple spreadsheets which allow you to graph visits, charges, inflow, etc. This resource is great for several years' worth of information and graphical analysis.  If you do not have a spreadsheet program, utilizing Google and their documents app works just fine. You can share documents among employees and can collaborate in real time. It's very reliable and downtime is rare.

But there are new software programs available to practitioners that not only capture your pertinent data, but allow you to easily analyze it without a lot of time and effort. These programs can allow you to tailor practice data based upon your current set of needs. Do you know the number of patient visits and their arrival rate? You can also find out your practice's estimated profitability based upon full-time equivalent employees, which includes support and administrative staff. If you have more than one office, it can also pull all of those clinics into one dashboard view. You can know within minutes what the health of your clinic is.

Using these types of programs, you can break down all information by day, week, month, quarter, and year; this way when you are planning a new hire, or feel that you may need to let a staff member go, this program will show you exactly where the problems and opportunities lie. By being able to identify by physician, physician assistant, nurse, or nurse practitioner, you will have a clear read on which areas excel or need work. This is also a great tool for employee reviews. By identifying how a particular employee is performing, you are able to set reasonable goals and expectations, and easily monitor that progress.

Regardless of the specific resource that you use, be sure you are being diligent about measuring employee, clinic, and overall company performance. Be confident that you are capturing accurate information, and that you understand the best way to utilize this data. It should always be used for good, positive change, and never as a weapon.