Using Cloudera for big data analytics to improve healthcare services to the patients
A multispeciality hospital started facing challenges upon expansion in different cities. Owing to inconsistency in data the hospital faced difficulties in auditing and tracking of the data spread across its different facilities in different cities. Our team from Glorious Insights helped this multispeciality chain of the healthcare industry segregate the data properly. Here’s the detailed study for you to understand how Glorious Insights helped this hospital in improving the healthcare services for the patients with the help of Cloudera.
Customer background
A multispeciality hospital has been providing quality healthcare services to its patients for over 25 years. It has several branches across the country to serve its patients. Despite a modest beginning, the hospital could earn credibility in the healthcare field and achieved thundering success. With its chain of hospitals, it has made its mark in providing holistic care.
In addition to quality doctors and infrastructure, the hospital bases its success on the way it manages its patients’ data. The record-keeping allows them to deliver better healthcare services to patients across the country. As the hospital expands its range geographically and in terms of services, the amount of data goes up exponentially. It teamed up with Glorious Insights to develop a system for big data analytics and improve its services.
Challenges
The hospital has multiple units operating in physically different locations. It needed a system that can keep track of all the data and made it available as and when required at all the units. This would help in providing services to its patients in different cities apparently. The comprehensive data storage and analytics would also provide insight into the hospital procedures and requirements of the patients at each unit. The key challenges that the hospital faces in the present system include the following.
- Inconsistency and inaccessibility of data
Patients’ data is presently maintained locally at every unit. This makes the data completely inaccessible to other units. If the data is shared for referrals or any other reason, duplicity results in inconsistent records for the same patient.
- Difficulty in tracking and auditing data
Physically distributed data and possibly multiple records for some patients makes it difficult to track the records. If a patient has seen more than one unit of the hospital chain, it becomes difficult to trace the line of treatment and development in that case.
- Confusion due to improper segregation
Data in the hospital pertains to thousands of patients that can be from tens of specialty departments of different units. As it is not properly cataloged, it is difficult to explore and creates confusion.
Solution
Glorious Insights along with the analytics team from the hospital worked to find a suitable solution for data analytics. Many available options lacked the ability to process huge datasets without compromising with the system’s agility. Finally, we resort to Cloudera which is a unified platform for big data to meet the revolutionary data management needs.
- Functional aspect
Upon analysis of different options, Cloudera earned the maximum score. It showed exceptional ability to put together massive volumes of data from heterogeneous sources. It could take in real-time data streams from all units, proprietary data, claims data, etc to create a comprehensive and refined database. It facilitated hospital management with the following features.
- Data segregation and management
The system provides data visualization in a more understandable form. It helped the staff to maintain clarity in every case and deliver quality services across all the units seamlessly. The reports generated provided deeper insight into the functioning of all the units to the management. This helped in evaluating units' performance and implement actions for improvement.
- Partners integration
The hospital chain also works in collaboration with other partners like diagnostic centers, pharma companies, etc. The new system with Cloudera could manage partners’ data efficiently.
- Backup and disaster recovery
Hospital data is critical. Any loss of data or system failure can result in catastrophes. The system is to provide back facilities to ensure rapid recovery from such a crisis.
- Scalability
The new system is designed to be scalable to adapt to the rising data management needs of the hospital.
- Technical aspect
A complete Cloudera environment is deployed to enable the collection, management, and visualization of data. Data from different ERMs, proprietary databases (related to claims), and operational data. The storage, processing, and analysis is performed centrally. Cloudera search is used to allow direct interaction at different levels.
The hospital users are already working on SAS. For that reason, SAS connectivity is provided through the SAS/ACCESS Interface to allow interaction using familiar tools.
Results
With the new system in place, the hospital achieved unprecedented efficiency. It can deliver superior services to the patients and establish new standards in the healthcare field. Some key transformations are:
- Data can now be integrated from unlimited sources within no time and maximum clarity.
- Accurate data analytics improved the diagnosis remarkably and helped in saving many lives.
- The operational and financial performance of the hospital improved significantly.
