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Carolinas HealthCare System: Consumer Analytics - Case Solution

John A. Quelch; Margaret Rodriguez | Harvard Business Review ( 515060-PDF-ENG ) | April 14, 2015 (Revision: 2023-09-01)
Abstract:

In 2014, Dr. Michael Dulin, head of the Dickson Advanced Analytics group at Carolinas HealthCare System, achieved success in unifying and grouping the clinical, financial, demographic, and claims data over a three year period. However, with the emergence of new mobile operating systems of both Apple and Google which are experts in analytics, Dr. Dulin is considering which player would delve into the integration of healthcare data in the near future.

Case Questions Answered

  • What was the business objective served by the pilot project?
  • What were the pilot project's goals? How well do these goals align with strategic priorities for DA2 & CHS?
  • What did the pilot actually do? What were the key results of the pilot?
  • What were the strengths of the pilot in terms of how it was executed?
  • Did we have any concerns about the execution of the pilot that made us question the validity of the results?
  • Were there important gaps in the information we received that made our assessment more uncertain?
  • If you thought the pilot should be implemented into the regular operations of CHS, how should that happen?
  • How hard would it be? What potential pitfalls should we worry about? Would the implementation of the pilot be cost-effective?
  • If you thought the pilot should not yet be implemented into regular operations, why not, and what should CHS do instead?

Memorandum for Carolinas HealthCare System

To: Carol Lovin, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Carolinas HealthCare

System

From: Michael Dulin, Head of Dickson Advanced Analytics

Date: November 13, 2014

Carolinas HealthCare System

Dickson Advanced Analytics (DA1) has recently completed four pilot projects, each intended to address key challenges and opportunities facing the Carolinas HealthCare System.

Per your request, we have performed an evaluation of three of these pilot projects based on the project descriptions we were provided.

In this report, we share the results of our evaluation and make recommendations on which pilots CHS should implement into regular operations.

We also discuss how and which, if any, of the pilots we should take in a different direction (and what that direction should be).

Purpose and Scope of the Investigation

We evaluated these three pilot projects:

P1: Mapping Underserved Communities

P2: Reducing Readmission

P3: Advanced Illness Management

The goals of our investigation were to (1) evaluate the projects based on a common set of questions and (2) recommend the next step(s) for each pilot project.

Questions Guiding the Evaluation

We used the following questions to guide our investigation of the three projects:

  • What was the business objective served by the pilot project?
  • What were the pilot project’s goals? How well do these goals align with strategic priorities for DA2 and Carolinas HealthCare System?
  • What did the pilot actually do? What were the key results of the pilot?
  • What were the strengths of the pilot in terms of how it was executed?
  • Did we have any concerns about the execution of the pilot that made us question the validity of the results? Were there important gaps in the information we received that made our assessment more uncertain?
  • If we thought the pilot should be implemented into the regular operations of CHS, how should that happen? How hard would it be? What potential pitfalls should we worry about? Would the implementation of the pilot be cost-effective?
  • If we thought the pilot should not yet be implemented into regular operations, why not, and what should we do instead?

Summary of Our Evaluation of the Pilots

In the evaluation of these three pilot projects, we have been able to (1) create new models to identify underserved primary care areas to (2) develop a sophisticated logarithm, which…

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