BIGHORN VALLEY HEALTH CENTER LEVERAGES WESTERN COMPUTER EXPERTISE TO UNLEASH MICROSOFT POWER BI CAPABILITIES
THE SOLUTION
In 2018, data volumes skyrocketed for Bighorn Valley Health Center as the nonprofit organization merged operations with three other health clinics in Montana. With so much more information to manage, Data Analyst Rebecca Mussetter realized the organization required greater business intelligence (BI) capabilities.
“All of our data lives inside of our electronic health records (EHR) system, but we lacked the reporting capabilities to easily monitor patient care and the activities of doctors and nurses,” Mussetter explains. “We tried exporting the data to Microsoft Excel, but it was a challenge manipulating spreadsheets and combining the separate data sets within the EHR.”
To solve this challenge, Bighorn Valley deployed Microsoft Power BI, which easily pulls data from the EHR system and merges data sets. Mussetter says it’s also beneficial that Power BI integrates with Microsoft Teams, the application Little Bighorn uses to share information and facilitate collaboration among medical personnel.
At first, Mussetter attempted to learn how to create Power BI dashboards on her own. “We did not want to absorb the cost of hiring external consultants to create dashboards for us,” says Mussetter. “But after a short while, we realized we needed an expert who could show us how to build reports while working side-by-side so eventually we could become more self-sufficient.”
Mussetter found the answer she was looking for after turning to Microsoft for referrals to Power BI experts. “We reached out to three solution providers, and Western Computer responded first—right away,” Mussetter says. “Western Computer impressed us not only with their knowledge of Power BI, but also their willingness to conform their consulting services to exactly what we wanted—regular one-on-one sessions to learn how to build the dashboards.”
- Build Power BI dashboards efficiently.
- Produce visual reports that executives and medical personnel can interpret easily.
- Identify a partner to provide on-going consulting and support for Power BI.
- Provides doctors and nurses with easy access to data for managing patient quality of care.
- Generates data for executives to help manage caseloads handled medical personnel and clinics.
- Streamlines distribution of report data by integrating with Microsoft Teams.
- Helps doctors and nurses determine when patients are due for tests and treatments.
- Enables executives to measure personnel utilization to ensure proper staffing levels at each clinic.
- Accelerates cash flow by identifying open patent encounters that doctors and nurses need to close.
- Analyzes usage of clinic space so new clinics can be built to optimize available space.
- Streamlines reconciling of claims with federal grant programs and insurance companies.
THE BENEFITS
With help from Western Computer, Bighorn Valley quickly developed two main dashboards that generate a wide range of reports. The Quality of Care dashboard is used through Microsoft Teams by 100 members of the medical staff across the organization. The Power BI visualization reports make it easier to identify clinical needs for each individual patient.
Doctors and nurses use the dashboard every day to confirm patient data and to conduct outreach to patients who require critical quality care measures. This helps make sure patients stay on schedule for tests and regular treatments. “We can also compare the care services we provide for each patient to the previous year,” Mussetter says. “And with Power BI, we can pull data from external sources to compare our patients to national averages.”
Doctors can also compare their patient treatments to other doctors in the organization, and each of the Bighorn Valley clinics can compare their activities to other clinics. “This gives our doctors and nurses the ability double-check that we provide the care our patients need,” Mussetter points out.
The Quality of Care dashboard is also helpful in generating reports Bighorn Valley provides to federal grant programs that fund the organization. Bighorn Valley also started a value-based payments program with Blue Cross Blue Shield, where payments are based on how well patients perform on critical quality measures rather than the number of services provided. Power BI will be helpful in this task as well.
The other key dashboard for Bighorn Valley focuses on productivity and includes 20 tabs with reports that executives can access. “The more our executives see what Power BI can do, the more reports they want,” Mussetter points out. “The size of this dashboard keeps growing.”
Key information that executives can now easily access includes the number of patients each doctor and nurse provide services to each day in comparison to national averages. Even though Bighorn Valley is a nonprofit, this utilization rate is key because it correlates strongly to revenue, and the organization is striving to attain sustainability outside of its grants.
“After reviewing the initial patients-per-day results, we deployed a process to factor in extenuating circumstances when we see anomalies,” Mussetter says. “This includes doctors who have extra-busy days during a month and a new provider who is not yet seeing patients. We can also factor in when doctors work for just half of a day and can manipulate the dashboard in real-time.”
Other key reports Bighorn Valley values include patient cancellations, no-shows, walk-ins, same-day appointments, and future open capacity for doctors and nurses. Power BI also makes it possible to analyze cycles—how much time patients spend at clinics and the amount of time for each phase of a visit, such as waiting in reception.
“When we see that patients tend to be idle during specific time periods, we can arrange for discussions with other members of our staff—such as a dental hygienist, behavioral health specialist, or a resource support specialist,” Mussetter says. “This allows us to add to the value of their visit and perhaps uncover other healthcare needs.”
The accounts receivable department finds the open encounters report to be particularly helpful. Doctors and nurses need to close out encounters with documentation on the results of patient visits in order for the billing process to start. By managing open encounters so that medical personnel close them as quickly as possible, the organization can accelerate the timeline to receive payments.
“Thanks to Western Computer helping us create and manipulate such a wide variety of Power BI reports, we now have fast access to a wealth of information,” Mussetter says. “In addition to analyzing patient activities and predicting patient behavior, Power BI has given us the ability to analyze the space capacity we need in our clinics. We are using Power BI reports to help optimize the space of two new clinics that we plan to build in the near future.”
Other than Power BI, all other IT services are handled by a Bighorn Valley internal team, which formed after the merger of the four healthcare clinics. So collaborating with an IT partner is a new experience—Western Computer is the only external IT resource the organization utilizes.
“Incorporating the Western Computer team into our weekly process of refining Power BI reports has gone very smoothly,” says Mussetter. “I meet with our executives and medical staff regularly to identify the information they need, and then I meet with Western Computer to generate the necessary reports. It’s also great knowing Western Computer can help us if something breaks—we don’t have to scour the Internet on our own to solve the problem.”
Mussetter also appreciates how Western Computer provides the flexibility to cancel and reschedule consulting sessions, or add extra sessions if a particular report is needed right away. “They always accommodate our schedule requests,” says Mussetter.
Over time, Mussetter is getting more proficient at building dashboards and finding the data to bring into Power BI on her own but expects there will be an on-going need for Western Computer’s Power BI expertise. “BI Dashboards are new to our organization, and it has been exciting to see the culture change as we rely more and more on Power BI reports,” Mussetter says. “Western Computer has played a key role in this culture shift and will no doubt help us tap into many new sources of information that drive improved patient care.”
Bighorn Valley Health Center merged with oneHealth, Central Montana Health Center, and Sweet Medical Center to form one healthcare organization to better serve communities throughout central and eastern Montana. All six Bighorn Valley clinical sites offer the same medical and behavioral health programs, and together, the organization strives to make healthcare more affordable, integrated and easier to access—by building healthy families one person at a time.
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