To prepare for successful self-service analytics, healthcare organizations must lay a strong foundation to ensure team members feel comfortable and confident with data. Many health systems are so eager to reap the benefits of self-service analytics that they rush its implementation before their team members are ready. These hurried approaches often lead to unsuccessful self-service analytics implementation that lacks the agility to support systems in a rapidly changing industry. To ensure self-service analytics success and avoid common pitfalls, healthcare organizations can focus on four pillars that build a strong self-service analytics foundation: 1. Develop a data-centric culture. 2. Promote data literacy. 3. Garner leadership support and ensure governance. 4. Define a business goal.

1. The Four Pillars of Successful
Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
Travis Touroo
Sr. Product Manager, DOS

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Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
Self-Service Analytics in healthcare can
empower team members across an
organization to leverage data and analytics on
their own, avoiding the common bottleneck of
waiting for a data analyst or IT team to deliver
a report or respond to a request.

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Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
Powered by accessible, no-code tools
with basic analytics capabilities, self-
service analytics enables non-data
experts within an organization to explore
data sets, create custom reports and
dashboards, and share valuable insights.

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Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
Immediate access to relevant data with
self-service analytics can drive more
informed decision making at every level
of the organization, resulting in better
financial and clinical outcomes.

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Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
However, many leaders rush into self-
service analytics because of its ability to
immediately enable end users and forget
to lay the critical groundwork necessary
for success—a data-centric culture, data
literacy, leadership support, and clearly
defined business goals.

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Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
To ensure self-service analytics success
and accelerate systemwide data use,
organizations must thoroughly prepare
before implementation and maintain
agility during and after.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
For team members to feel comfortable and confident with self-service analytics
and help data reach its full potential, health systems should focus on the four
pillars of a strong foundation:
Develop a Data-
Centric Culture
PILLAR #1
Promote Data
Literacy
PILLAR #2
Garner Leadership
Support and Ensure
Governance
PILLAR #3
Develop a Data-
Centric Culture
PILLAR #4

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #1: Develop a Data-Centric Culture
To guide effective data democratization,
organizations should first understand that
data is constantly changing.
The best way to support this constant
change is to invest in a robust data platform,
such as the Health Catalyst Data Operating
System (DOS™).

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #1: Develop a Data-Centric Culture
Team members can’t value data if they
can’t access it, making a data-centric
culture critical for successful self-service
analytics.
Data centricity starts with data
democratization—breaking down data
silos to ensure all team members have
timely access to the right level of the
health system’s data in a useful format.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #1: Develop a Data-Centric Culture
An advanced data platform is critical for a
data-centric culture because it can quickly
combine data from multiple sources and
distribute pertinent data to end users rather
than forcing them to seek out different data
sets and manually combine them.
When team members can more easily
access data through a data platform,
they are more likely to use it, creating
a culture that values and trusts data to
drive decision making.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #2: Promote Data Literacy
To successfully promote self-service
analytics, organizations can invest in
data literacy programs to train team
members who are not data experts how
to read, work with, analyze, and
communicate with data.
Data literacy training focusing on basic
data tools and concepts helps team
members feel comfortable and confident
using data to make decisions.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #2: Promote Data Literacy
Often, some team members will organically
become “data champions” due to literacy
programs and self-service analytics.
Data champions are individuals who are
passionate about using data effectively and can
help other team members within their discipline
(e.g., the cardiology department or decision
support) feel more comfortable using data.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #2: Promote Data Literacy
Data champions can be an invaluable part
of maintaining a data-driven culture and
closing gaps in the analytical strategy.
After data teams identify data champions,
they should recognize and encourage
these team members, further promoting
the value of data and data champions.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #2: Promote Data Literacy
Without data literacy support, team
members might refrain from using
data in their day-to-day jobs because
they lack the know-how.
For example, specific data sets about
different patient populations could
reveal the risk of readmission for
different cohorts within a population.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #2: Promote Data Literacy
If the population health leader doesn’t
feel comfortable using the data, she will
most likely use less accurate inform-
ation to inform her decisions, leading
to suboptimal results.
Inversely, if she had received data
literacy training or had a data champion
on her population health team, she
would likely reference the data or ask
that team member before making a
decision, leading to a more informed
decision for her patients.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #2: Promote Data Literacy
When end users (e.g., the population
health leader) feel confident using data
and analytics tools, they are better
prepared to successfully leverage self-
service analytics in healthcare.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #3: Garner Leadership Support and Ensure Governance
Key strategies to garner high-level support
for self-service analytics include showing
leaders how data-informed decision-
making leads to better outcomes.
For example, providing regular results and
updates that demonstrate better outcomes,
increased savings, or reduced waste can
increase leadership support for self-service
analytics.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #3: Garner Leadership Support and Ensure Governance
Using self-service analytics tools to drive
discussion and tell data stories during
meetings and presentations is especially
impactful in showcasing the value of this
analytic capability to leaders.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #3: Garner Leadership Support and Ensure Governance
Another way to show leaders the value of
data is to include them in the data
governance strategy.
Effective data governance includes team
members from varied disciplines and offers
diverse opinions when deciding the best
way to maximize data.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #3: Garner Leadership Support and Ensure Governance
When leaders see how the organization
manages data and ensures its accuracy,
access, and protection, they are more
likely to trust and support the data strategy,
which is critical to successful self-service
analytics down the road.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #3: Garner Leadership Support and Ensure Governance
Many organizations already have
centralized data or IT teams managing
their data assets, verifying data security,
and ensuring accuracy and timely
delivery of analytic insight.
These longstanding data management
processes make it natural for
organizations to experience some
tension when introducing self-service
analytics concepts.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #3: Garner Leadership Support and Ensure Governance
However, health systems can address
concerns about data democratization by
closely collaborating with the data governance
team, creating a self-service analytics strategy
that starts at the top and aligns with
organizational goals, and cultivating a
common belief that building a data-centric
culture will move the organization forward.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #4: Define A Business Goal
With the amount of newly available data
in healthcare, some health systems rush
into data usage without defining a clear
business problem to solve.
Releasing data dashboards and tools to
end users without a clear focus or proper
training can decrease data utilization and
even turn team members off from using
data firsthand if they have a bad
experience.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #4: Define A Business Goal
For example, a team member who is not
a data expert could spend hours looking
for meaningful measures, but if he
doesn’t know which data sets to review,
this could lead to hours wasted.
Or, end users could easily feel
overwhelmed by too much data, not
knowing which data is relevant, in their
self-service analytics experience.

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #4: Define A Business Goal
To avoid the problems listed above, organizations
should clearly identify the data user personas
within their organization, including the specific
challenges they face (e.g., the VP of population
health building a predictive model to identify
patients at risk for Type 2 diabetes).

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The Four Pillars of Successful Self-Service
Analytics in Healthcare
Pillar #4: Define A Business Goal
Creating accurate personas provides the
data team with in-depth information that
can guide better data tools and training
development.
This informed approach also reduces
complexity within self-service analytics
tools and datasets, increases positive
experiences for team members, and
better prepares the organization for a
smooth self-service analytics rollout.

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A Four-Pillar Foundation Is Critical for
Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
With increased pressure to survive on
already-thin operating margins and
dwindling resources, every health
system decision impacts the
organization’s wellbeing.
To help team members make quick,
informed decisions, organizations can
leverage self-service analytics,
eliminating the wait time for a data
expert to generate a report or the
time-consuming process of manually
aggregating data.

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A Four-Pillar Foundation Is Critical for
Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
With easy access to relevant data and
the ability to customize data tools to a
user’s specific needs, team members
can quickly respond to market changes,
changes in a patient’s health, and more.

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A Four-Pillar Foundation Is Critical for
Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
Whether leaders are working toward
self-service analytics as a long-term
goal or using it now, they should be
continuously building a data-
supporting culture that values data,
promotes data literacy, earns
leadership buy in, and defines
business goals.

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A Four-Pillar Foundation Is Critical for
Self-Service Analytics in Healthcare
With a strong foundation, organizations are
ready for a seamless transition to, or more
effective use of, self-service analytics that
empowers team members with relevant
information at their fingertips to make the
most informed decisions.

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For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

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More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
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Deliver Data to Decision Makers: Two Important Strategies for Success
Health Catalyst Editors

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Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Travis Touroo

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Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
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