In today's competitive healthcare environment, every hospital and health system is searching for a larger piece of their market's pie.
Organizations can gain market share through various means, like growing physician referral streams and developing service lines and centers of excellence. Putting together a strategy to actually grow market share, however, can be a lengthy process, and there is no perfect science to determine which physicians and practices to target for referral and service line growth. For instance, most hospitals and health systems are limited to untimely inpatient data when attempting to target physicians in order to grow service lines.
That's where big data — such as claims, consumer, electronic medical records and pharmaceutical insights — can help. "It lets [organizations] look outside of the traditionally available data sets to understand the flow of patients between physicians and other facilities," explains Brad Ryan, MD, general manger of IMS Health's Payer and Provider Solutions. "[It can] inform a number of initiatives around service line and centers of excellence growth and acquisition strategies."
Beyond that advantage, big data can specifically help organizations develop their market growth strategy in two ways: choosing which physicians and practices to target and then informing the message presented to those physicians.
Targeting physicians. Expanded analytics can help hospitals and health systems decide which physician practices to reach out to when trying to grow a center of excellence or capture referrals. "Health systems need better analytics to help find which physicians to target before you even say 'go,'" Dr. Ryan says. Those insights give a picture of the case and payor mixes for a specific practice, which allows a hospital or system to choose which practices could optimize the case mix for a certain service line, for example. If an organization targets those physicians and practices for a service line, its share of the market is likely to grow.
Informing the message. Once the organization has chosen which physician practices to go after, analytics also allow physician liaisons to better prepare and carry out informed conversations with the physicians. "The physician liaison needs to be armed with information to have a meaningful conversation…rather than a vanilla conversation," Dr. Ryan says.
Those unique, informed conversations impress physicians and make liaisons more effective. For example, if an organization is attempting to grow its cardiovascular service line, liaisons can have information on a practice's case mix and can try to understand why that practice is not referring its cardiovascular patients to the network. "It's a very different conversation when they're informed," explains Dr. Ryan.
Overall, expanding the types of data used when making strategy decisions on market share growth can help find opportunities in the market and arm liaisons with actionable information to present to physicians, which can lead to a stronger service line and a larger share of the market's referrals.
Organizations can gain market share through various means, like growing physician referral streams and developing service lines and centers of excellence. Putting together a strategy to actually grow market share, however, can be a lengthy process, and there is no perfect science to determine which physicians and practices to target for referral and service line growth. For instance, most hospitals and health systems are limited to untimely inpatient data when attempting to target physicians in order to grow service lines.
That's where big data — such as claims, consumer, electronic medical records and pharmaceutical insights — can help. "It lets [organizations] look outside of the traditionally available data sets to understand the flow of patients between physicians and other facilities," explains Brad Ryan, MD, general manger of IMS Health's Payer and Provider Solutions. "[It can] inform a number of initiatives around service line and centers of excellence growth and acquisition strategies."
How it helps
Big data, like IMS Health is starting to provide through an analytics tool, is an improvement from traditional data because it is timelier and it includes outpatient information, according to Dr. Ryan. "There can be a blind-spot on outpatient data," he explains. "Integrating outpatient and pharmacy claims provides a longitudinal view of the patient."Beyond that advantage, big data can specifically help organizations develop their market growth strategy in two ways: choosing which physicians and practices to target and then informing the message presented to those physicians.
Targeting physicians. Expanded analytics can help hospitals and health systems decide which physician practices to reach out to when trying to grow a center of excellence or capture referrals. "Health systems need better analytics to help find which physicians to target before you even say 'go,'" Dr. Ryan says. Those insights give a picture of the case and payor mixes for a specific practice, which allows a hospital or system to choose which practices could optimize the case mix for a certain service line, for example. If an organization targets those physicians and practices for a service line, its share of the market is likely to grow.
Informing the message. Once the organization has chosen which physician practices to go after, analytics also allow physician liaisons to better prepare and carry out informed conversations with the physicians. "The physician liaison needs to be armed with information to have a meaningful conversation…rather than a vanilla conversation," Dr. Ryan says.
Those unique, informed conversations impress physicians and make liaisons more effective. For example, if an organization is attempting to grow its cardiovascular service line, liaisons can have information on a practice's case mix and can try to understand why that practice is not referring its cardiovascular patients to the network. "It's a very different conversation when they're informed," explains Dr. Ryan.
Results
Though IMS Health just started providing this type of data to health systems and hospitals, it has gotten positive anecdotal feedback on the data tool in regards to identifying growth opportunities in the market and determining where physician liaisons should be deployed, according to Dr. Ryan.Overall, expanding the types of data used when making strategy decisions on market share growth can help find opportunities in the market and arm liaisons with actionable information to present to physicians, which can lead to a stronger service line and a larger share of the market's referrals.