Intro: The following SHSMD Podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.

Bill Klaproth (Host): On this edition of the SHSMD Podcast, it's another SHSMD Connections conference preview. That's, is that my wrestling? I don't know what that is. As we talk with Molly Bailey and Verna Ehlen, who will be presenting at SHSMD Connections in Dallas this October, talking about how dynamic dashboards transform data-driven decisions in healthcare strategy.

You're going to dig this session and you're going to dig what Verna and Molly have to say, so let's get to them. Right now.

This is the SHSMD podcast, rapid insights for healthcare strategy professionals in planning, business development, marketing, communications, and public relations. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth. In this episode, we talk with Molly Bailey, Senior Planning Manager and Verna Ehlen, Domain Analyst, both from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Today we are talking about their SHSMD Connections presentation. Harnessing the Power of Integrated Data, Exploring How Dynamic Dashboards Transform Data-Driven Decisions in Healthcare strategy. Molly and Verna, welcome.

Molly Bailey: Thank you so much, Bill, for inviting us to come speak about our session today. We are really excited to share the way that we have done our integrated data dashboards here at Wash U in St. Louis and how we have been able to support our leaders through our strategic planning lens.

Host: Great, and Verna welcome.

Verna Ehlen: Thank you. It's so exciting to be here.

Host: Yeah, for sure. So very excited to talk to you about your session. So Molly, thank you for that. Could you tell us a little bit more about someone can expect when they go to your session?

Molly Bailey: Of course, Bill. Thanks so much. So we are going to show you the way that we have brought together and assimilated some public, proprietary and industry data in a way that allows our leaders to have strategic insights, to think differently about their strategies and ways that the dynamic access can change the way that those strategies are brought forward, or how you might highlight an opportunity in the market by looking at all of that data integrated in one location and the way that we've really seen success with our leaders, and we're excited to share that.

Host: Alright, let's stay on that then. How does integrating public, proprietary and industry data into a unified dashboard benefit healthcare organizations?

Molly Bailey: Yes. Thank you. So we think that some of the benefits of integrating all of this data, the number one, is speed. Having access to that site and not having to go to all logins, having different logins, looking at each of those data elements in their own silos. We think it's really important to be able to see that data playing together, being able to pull some of those growth rates into your internal patient origin data.

We also think the simplicity. Our leaders don't like to go look around in several different dashboards. They like to know what they're seeing is consistent across our view. So if they're seeing population, on one site, they know what the definition is of that population growth. They know that they're seeing a consistent metric that's applied in a way that they understand.

We think the coordination of those being able in one site, that metric, they're all tied together. We have a centering data element. We spend a lot of time behind the scenes, staging and putting together our data in a way that makes sense. So we're pulling it together again, not in those silos.

We're putting it together in a way that they're able to see multiple elements and how those elements are impacted across the metrics, and we think that it's actionable. So having the ability to look at this data in this visually integrated way, our leaders aren't thinking in silos. Again, when they're looking at that, it makes that simplicity so much easier for our leaders.

Operational leaders might have different questions than our senior leaders or some of the regional leaders, so being able to have different drivers they have access to that they can select. So population growth, a huge one that we look at. If there is an opportunity, if a population's growing in a certain market and we don't have a service is there; that's something for us to look at. If our patients, if our patient origin is really dense in a certain area and we don't have a service offering, that gives us the opportunity to look at what services might be popular in that area, either internally or with our competitors. And having all that integrated in one source just really cuts down on that time and makes it much more actionable for our senior leaders, we found.

Host: So you mentioned speed, simplicity, coordination, all kinda lumped together, giving you this realtime data. So what is the impact that this has had, this realtime data access had on strategic decision making in healthcare?

Molly Bailey: So for us, the key role of strategic planning, we don't make decisions. It's our job to elevate this data information for our leaders, for them to make the best decisions possible. Again, our senior leaders, our operational leaders, different levels of leaders are asking those different types of questions.

So we found that, you know, we'd like to align with those qualitative perceptions. We want to show the quantitative analysis behind that, and we want to make sure that we are either, again, aligning or disputing. We want to change the mental model of our leaders by really either supporting some of those elements and some of those strategies that they've thought about or if the data doesn't support it, really elevating what is alternatives or what are some of the things that our data is showing us that disputes their qualitative perception.

So really trying to align that qualitative and the quantitative perceptions of our leaders. And they really make sure they look to us to provide this information and having dashboards that they can readily look at instead of just asking questions and it filtering through us. We do provide a layer of expertise over that, but for them to be able to go in and look at it without waiting for two weeks for a response or asking us, or we're asking our partners for a certain data cut; that is saving a significant amount of time. Even I have been in the joint office for almost 10 years now. And I'm sure several other organizations have been through these evolutions of data where some things have been annual in the past and now, while some data sets we know will always be annual, it's those real time data metrics that we're layering on top of it and adding in that qualitative analysis that's really taking it to the next level.

Host: Well, nobody likes to wait. We know that in our society, so speed always wins. So as you say, where's that data? It's nice to be able to say, here it is. So let me ask you this, Molly. Which types of data do you find most valuable then for evaluating regional marketing opportunities?

Molly Bailey: Yeah, of course. So when we are starting to evaluate any regional opportunity, of course the person that we're going to look at is population growth from the external market. Where are we serving our patients? What does that population growth look like? What's the current access to healthcare in the region, especially those high demand services?

What are our industry partners telling us are the projected growth rates for some of those service lines? Is cardiovascular care increasing or decreasing in that market? Is it diagnostic that we're looking at? Is it outpatient? What is the type of care that's occurring in that market? Anyone will tell you no margin, no mission, if you've ever been involved with health systems in the past, it's kind of a popular saying.

So we want to make sure that that payer mix and the financial viability of the services being provided in those settings is viable and sustainable not only for the physician providers or extenders, but also for our hospital health system counterparts for the entire enterprise. And our system is a little bit unique that our hospital partners are still a separate legal entity from our physician enterprise.

We did just enter in an affiliation agreement, which is part of that case study we'll go into, and how we've been evaluating some of these after the affiliation. But it's a little bit more challenging for the way that our organization is structured, that we are still two separate legal entities. So we really work together, and we build those relationships that we make sure that, you know, any data that we have is transparent as possible while still being respectful of the data use agreements and not everyone gets access to everything, and that can be a little bit frustrating. But we think whenever to take it back to those regional market opportunities. Again, population growth. We want to make sure that it's financially viable. We want to make sure that if we are offering services in that area, that we're doing so in the best way possible for those that we serve in that area.

And if there are new market opportunities, that we're elevating those, is there a type of services that can be provided to attract those new markets? Something that is newer in this world is that claims-based data. There are a lot of people that do this, and if you can get a regional provider of the claims-based data that has a little bit more of that knowledge to clean up the data for you, I think that's really valuable and that is able to show you those access points for the system as well.

And your relationships with providers, do you have a strong loyalty in that area or is there opportunity and some other data would be CMS data, severity index. Do we have high acuity or low acuity patients that we're seeing here? They all require different types of a service compliment to serve. Census data, fertility rates, household income, social determinants of health is a huge one. And what are some of those barriers to care that we're looking at? There are some very real realities that those that we serve are facing. So they might have additional hurdles to get to care. So how can we address that as well? All of these are taken into account whenever we are doing any regional market opportunity analysis.

Host: So when you're looking at that analysis, let's talk about satellite expansion a little bit. Can you elaborate in how patient origin mapping and demographic analysis influence satellite expansion decisions?

Molly Bailey: Yes, of course. This is something that we will definitely go into in our case study as well. We really do want our patients to get the highest quality care closest to home. We want it to be so convenient for them and at the lowest cost possible, with the highest possible outcomes. So we want to also be the best option for those in the market whenever they're looking at that. By using patient origin mapping, in addition to that demographic analysis and other critical data sets, we can create some strategic tables and decks for our leaders to elevate their strategies. This really ignites their strategic thinking when they see all of these elements married together. And that really develops the comprehensive strategy for the satellite expansion.

So these tools allow us to look at the intersection of where there's the growth opportunity, where we have our current patient makeup, if we don't have a current patient makeup, to really, highlights that gap in the market for us. If there are hotspots, a population where we don't have any services right now, that's really a good opportunity for us to look at increasing our market share and increasing the lives that we serve.

And we want to make sure that we're providing unique care to that area, sustainable and superior services to the public and if you are looking at your, you know, depending on how comprehensive or specialized your organization is, when you're looking at these market opportunities, there are some creative solutions and partnerships that might be more sustainable for different organizations in their market.

If there's a shrinking population in your market, if you have a highly capital intensive opportunity, you might be more strategic to partner in that area. So looking at density again of your population, your current patient makeup. All of those are things we, we're looking at when we're looking at the mapping.

Those mapping really highlight those for us in a way that just looking at a number on a page does not do, and we really found that a lot of the senior leaders are more geographically mobile over the course of their career. Our leader has been at seven different academic medical centers over his career.

So being able to provide that geographical visual representation for your senior leaders, cuts the time to understanding. It's really, again, that speed of analysis, that speed of understanding something might look good on paper, might look good in a data table. When you see it on a map, you see what's next to it.

You see where those intersections are, see what services are provided around there. Look at the construction patterns. All of that, you really, it really comes to life in those maps. It's something that we've really been able to help close the perception with realities with our leaders.

Host: Geographically mobile. I like that term. Everybody write that down. That's a good one. So Molly, this data really gives you insight into whether expansion is viable. Would that be right?

Molly Bailey: Yes. And we do layer on physician productivity for those options as well. You might have a different compliment in different markets. So again, looking at that physician supply and demand and their productivity in that market is something that we layer on there as well.

Host: So Verna, let me bring you into the conversation. Let's bring this down to the provider level, if you will. So in what ways can integrated dashboards be utilized to assess and improve provider productivity?

Verna Ehlen: Right, integrate it all in one dashboard makes it so much easier. Metrics that we typically have pulled together to evaluate productivity are the work RVUs, their clinical FTE, and we pair that with the industry benchmarks. So when it's all in one visual, in one place, it is so much easier to identify where an outlier may be, an area of improvement.

And in addition to that, leaders can more easily evaluate and develop strategies for growth, revenue opportunities within the service lines.

Host: So you said you pair this information with industry benchmarks. How crucial then are these benchmarks in evaluating clinical and financial performance?

Verna Ehlen: So these benchmarks definitely help with not just evaluating the provider productivity, but we look at things such as cost, quality and the provider compensation. Those are big ones that are helpful for us. So by comparing ourselves to our peer institutions in our region, and how they're performing, it helps us to identify areas that we might need to improve to stay competitive in the market, reduce costs, retain providers, and improve that patient care. We really strive to be the leaders in cutting edge healthcare technology as well as providing the best patient experience and patient care as possible. And, to be the best, we must be able to attract and retain those providers, right? And use of these benchmarks really helps us.

Molly Bailey: I just want to add that whenever we use those industry benchmarks for the strategic planning office, which is what we're in; we use that a lot to go out and just cold call. If somebody is doing something really well, we will go out and cold call. What are you doing really well? Or we start diving into what are our peers doing.

And we really use that as a tool to help us connect, and help us move our own strategies forward. When we see somebody else that's really shiny.

Host: Yeah. No, that really makes sense. So, uh, thank you for adding that in. I can see where those benchmarks really are important and interesting how you can use them in different ways then for sure. So Molly, I know that you put together a large case study. Can you walk us through the Washington University case study that you assembled and tell us how data influenced decision-making processes?

Molly Bailey: Yes, of course. So I think I alluded to, we just went through a major affiliation with our hospital partners. So this case study is going to explore how we are integrating those various data sources across the systems now, into automated Power BI dashboards for these different types of analysis.

Our case study is going to demonstrate how we are understanding our patient origin, how we are assessing competitors, evaluating our payer mix, identifying market opportunity, as well as accounting for that physician productivity to ensure that it's a viable expansion opportunity. We are hoping that after the session, our participants are going to be able to understand how to elevate elements there that are going to be able to require to assimilate public, proprietary and that industry data to create those meaningful visualizations for physician and system enterprise leadership.

Again, they are different questions that are being asked. So we really want to support that strategic decision making and ensuring that our leaders are on the same page. Looking at the same language. That increases their trust, which is especially important in this time of our affiliation. We are going to show how we are evaluating those market opportunities using our maps and our strategic tables.

That data for us, it confirmed our location priority of an expansion opportunity that we're currently moving into. The existing patient origin and the market share capture opportunities. Those expectations there highlighted and confirmed that was the right market for us to go into, and it showed, so for one example, if we're already at 50% in a target market, it's unlikely that we're going to be able to penetrate that market further.

If you're at 20% market share, for example, you really have to make sure that you are going to provide the right mix of services and how we would look at, you know, what were the most popular services in that market with our competitors and with our current patients that we capture. And finally we are going, our participants, we're hoping that they're going to be able to understand how to integrate analytics to optimize the provider deployment, looking at the provider recruitment needs and the realities of that with recruitment, with operational realities of clinics and providing patient care out in a region. Can our current provider structure capture any market expansion opportunities? Will that require the lead time for academic recruitment?

Will it be a more community focused recruitment? We have a tripartite mission at Wash U School of Medicine. It's not just clinical care. We have an academic mission and we have that research mission. So the academic providers have a different compliment that they're providing. So really looking at that structure and the service delivery, the right provider, the right place for the right care, and looking at the volume expectations and to show them if you would need to do provider recruitment. We're hoping that our case study, the way that we're going to be able to walk through it, show how our data tables, how we put them together, how we used them for our recent expansion and opportunity evaluation, and we're really excited to hear about other people's examples.

We hope that we get a lot of questions and engagement from the audience. We know there are different people across the country that are in different, different levels of sophistication with this effort. Some are farther along than we are. Some are a single enterprise. They don't have a split physician and hospital component that they're navigating, so it's is a very exciting time for the evolution of everyone's data journey, including our own. We're happy to share ours and we're excited to learn from others as well.

Host: Well, this sounds like it's going to be a blockbuster session. You're going to be dropping the knowledge. You're dropping the knowledge left and right. It's going to be crazy. So this is really going to be great and we're so happy you're going to be with us at SHSMD Connections in Dallas. So you mentioned not a lot of facilities have this split physician and hospital group, so it sounds like you're also marrying the physician information or physician data along with the system health information data. So, Verna, what were some of the challenges then faced in integrating data from multiple sources as you have there, and how were they overcome?

Verna Ehlen: Right. Well, it's definitely lots of fun um sometimes. As you mentioned, marrying these two together, as you can imagine, they're not always in the same format, and working to link them together and play nicely. So probably two of the biggest challenges was the linking and staging behind the scenes to make that work. For example, when we're working with that patient origin and region data, one of the key linkages that we were able to use was zip code in pulling this all together.

So format, you know, zip codes can come in multiple different formats with those extra digits. So then just aligning those together so that everything flows nicely together for that visual. So that was, the biggest challenge to work with in getting that formatted and aligned. Standard definitions is also important.

For example, clinical volumes. How do we want to report our clinical volumes? When it comes to visits, do we want to report the evaluation and management CPT codes? Or do we want to pull in all encounters, which could include radiology, the ancillaries, and that sort of thing. So creating those definitions of how do we want to track our volumes and how do we want to report it is important.

 As well as the data sources and the governance of those sources. For internal data, we often had, there were different sources from the same kind of data. So identifying what did we want to use as a source of truth for that data, and then who's governing that data?

Host: I could see where this really would be beneficial. Yeah. Molly.

Molly Bailey: So Verna is unique strategic planning at Wash U and BJC dashboarding. IT owns dashboarding. A lot of organizations, they do a lot of dashboarding here as well. Finance has dashboards that they own and they look at financial metrics. Our physician billing services team has their own way that they look at things and prefer to see things.

Our strategic planning office, were able to come up above with a bird's eye view and say, okay, that our leader likes this from the finance today. Or we like this from the operational today. So we get to pick and choose and really tie those elements together in a way that when you are living and breathing finance, it might not make sense for you to do that.

Or if you are physician billing services, you don't want to touch the finance world. You don't want to get involved with the accounting side of things. So our team comes together and it's really the relationships required and the political navigation behind the scenes, especially when you are two different organizations and you all have the right definition of something.

That governance and buy-in and being able to politically and socially navigate those emotions and egos in the room when you're coming together to show something to the leaders of the two organizations, I think that we can't stress enough the governance and the buy-in of this, you might all be doing something very similar.

Operational and senior leaders answer different questions and they need different types of information to view. So I think that's really been something that we've had to overcome, how we become better partners with the experts at our organization. The hard data is one thing, but again, it's that soft skill of navigating behind the scenes, working with our IT partners.

Because Verna is very much, an in-between resource for us. She didn't come in green to our office or this work. She really lived and breathed it before. So she really understands those operational realities that our departments are facing. So she has been a huge asset to our department and our work here.

So I mean, really that governance, the buy-in, the staging, everything she's done, she's, she hasn't started from scratch, but she's also not the, the IT guru kind of putting stuff behind the scenes together. We work in between and we really beta a lot of our metrics that then become steady state in other areas for them to own. So that's exciting. It's exciting to put all this together.

Host: Verna, she does it all. It sounds like gets a

dashboard. It sounds like everybody gets a dashboard. It's like Oprah. You dashboard, you get a dashboard, you get a dashboard. I mean, can I, I want a dashboard. Can I get one? Everybody's getting a dashboard. Everybody's getting a dashboard. What's going on here? Oh my gosh. Alright, so Molly, let me ask you this. Can you, if you could look into your crystal ball that you have right there, looking ahead, what future metrics or data sources do you foresee as essential for strategic planning?

Molly Bailey: Yeah. Social determinants of health. How all of the barriers are preventing access to care. How are those playing into us providing the best care that we can for those that we serve in our market? What are the realities of our market and the populations in our market? What are they facing and how does that really impact outcomes in the future?

I also think the level of financial components and tying together will continue to increase in the future. I think, HSG is doing a share of care, share of wallet expenditures. They're a vendor. They've actually presented at SHSMD before. I saw that yesterday in 2021. So more of that work, measuring what the financial impact is in the market.

What are those referral relationships? How are the claims, you know, what are those access points? Ambulatory, inpatient, imaging, SNF, what is that continuum of care, what does that look like? So I think really managing what the financial impacts, there are less resources to go around for more needs, and that will continue.

I also think that predictive analytics and AI will be huge. If there's prevention that we can do in a certain care pathway, and that impacts outcomes down the road. I think looking at that predictive analytics, pulling that into your volumes data, showing how that's going to impact you in the future, especially with those industry growth rates.

Are we going to have a specific layer that's unique to us in our institution or our market? I think more work with the claims. And better referral data, better population outpatient with that claims data. Right now, inpatient data is the most readily available for most across the nation.

They're state-based inpatient claims. With the transition of care from inpatient to outpatient, that's less and less of something that will stand alone. It is what market share is based off of a lot, but I think more outpatient knowledge. It's a little bit harder with private capital, private equity going in, they don't have to report things out a lot.

So it's a little bit more murky. It's less transparent in the outpatient world. So I think the referral data, financial, service line growth estimates, more sophistication in that way and more tied to financial realities in your market, not just internal data.

Host: And I want everybody to note we did not mention AI until the 27 minute mark. Okay. Just want everybody to, everybody to note that. Pretty good. Pretty darn good. So let me ask each of you this question, Verna, let me start with you. So for someone listening to this, watching this, if you will, how can other institutions replicate your approach to bolster their growth and improve care delivery?

Verna Ehlen: Planning is key, of course. First step would be to identify what are those key metrics that you would like to track, based on your facility's mission and goals. And then identify what is the source of truth for those metrics that you're tracking and decide which platform works best for you as well.

Is it Power BI or is it Tableau? Some people are more comfortable with one over the other. And then also, depending on the type of metrics and visuals that are going to be used in the dashboard, you know, one works a little better than others and another one depending on what metrics are going to be pulled together.

Host: It sounds like you kind of have to almost trial and error. Maybe you kind of get it getting out there and try things out to find out what actually works best for your health system. Would that be right?

Verna Ehlen: Yeah, for me, definitely when I was pulling things together, I certainly tried different things and you kind of have to do that sometimes you don't know until you try it out, right?

Host: You don't know until you know for sure. Well, thank you for that. Molly, how can other institutions replicate what you've done to improve growth and care delivery?

Molly Bailey: Yeah. So really to build on what Verna just said, and I think for us it really was the structure of the data for the strategic planning office. It was very manual in the past, Verna really is our expert in between the IT and the end user. She layers in with us. And I think that's been extremely important to not have that technical, you're not trying to bring somebody up from zero.

She's lived and breathed in our organization. I think that expert providing that layer of transparency, the buy-in and definitions there of what you are looking at, what is volumes today for what we're looking at. And I think consistency, trying to report your metrics as consistent as possible in the simplest terms as possible, to make sure that your leaders understand. They don't live and breathe in the 50 metrics.

They don't know that there are 50 codes behind the scenes that support the productivity reporting. They don't know that one code can significantly impact that. So I think, us having that expertise, knowing that we can go into that, having our partnerships, our relationships that we have created with the experts in that area, that if there are questions in the data, in strategic planning, that we have a breadth of knowledge of our system.

But I will never be the finance expert. I will feel comfortable going to my finance teammates and I'm glad that we have a relationship with them, that makes this easier for us. That we're able to pull and extract the highest and easiest to understand information for our leaders. And I think just really making sure for us, we've homegrown, we've beta some of our dashboards and that making sure that as you, if you go the same route that we did, if from the strategic planning lens, that making sure that you are bringing in that IT integration as you evolve.

We have an affiliation, so our needs have been changing a little bit. But ways that you have accessed information in the past might be evolving if your system is evolving as well, to make sure that you are making it easier for your gurus. So for our Verna that she's not having to stage if something's been agreed upon across the system, let's go ahead and take that standard definition and work with our IT leaders to clean that up so she doesn't have to do that anymore.

She might have to for a long time, but making sure that we're bringing in IT as we go along, because you might be doing a little bit of this homegrown and I, that's really exciting to do and you should continue to move forward for your leaders. But again, just partnering when you can, moving forward as you can as well.

Don't get stuck with perfection. You have to move forward.

Host: Right. That is a really good point, and everybody needs a Verna. Okay. Everybody needs a guru like Verna that's all, that's, that's all I have to say on that. So as we wrap up, I want to thank you both. This has really been insightful and a lot of fun talking to you about your session. So as we wrap up talking about your session, Harnessing the Power of Integrated Data, if I could just get quick thoughts from you as we wrap up.

Molly, let me start with you. Anything else you want to add?

Molly Bailey: Yeah, so our title is Harnessing the Power of Integrated Data, and usually you think of data as those one two binary inputs, but I think one of the most important things is the relationships you develop along the way. Again, you don't have the depth in some of the areas that you might be developing. You need partnerships, you have to have working relationships and build those relationships internally to your team so that when things come up, you have that backup.

You know, it's really important the people behind the data.

Host: Absolutely. Verna final thoughts from you?

Verna Ehlen: Sure. Well, there's a lot of data out there. So don't let that overwhelm you to take that first step into starting with pulling together a dashboard. One thing that we did is we kind of created a wishlist of things that we would like to see in a dashboard, and we've broken into phases, so that kinda helped us minimize just being overwhelmed with all the data that's out there.

Host: That sounds great, and you know, after the podcast, please stay on so we can talk about you building my dashboard. Because everybody needs a dashboard. Come on now. Well, I want to thank you both, Molly and Verna. Thank you so much for your time today. This has really been fun. Thanks again.

Molly Bailey: Thank you. We appreciate it.

Verna Ehlen: Thanks again for having us.

Host: You bet. And once again, Molly and Verna will be speaking on this topic during the 2025 SHSMD Connections conference. It's this October in Dallas, Texas. Hopefully you've gotten registered. If you haven't yet, what are you waiting for? Molly's going to be there. Verna the Guru is going to be there. I'm going to be there.

Not that that's a draw. We're all going to be there. So come and join us, and if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media and please hit the subscribe or follow button so you don't miss any episode of the SHSMD Podcast. It's very informative and helpful, as you know. And to access our full podcast library for other topics of interest to you, visit shsmd.org/podcasts.

This has been a production of Dr. Podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. See ya.