BI tool and visualization solution vendors recognize the importance of a healthcare enterprise data warehouse, so they sometimes market themselves as cloud data warehouses. Here are 5 things a healthcare BI tool cannot do: i. Optimize the healthcare data. ii. Handle large amounts of healthcare data. iii. Work with healthcare data at different levels of granularity. iv. Optimize healthcare data for multiple user types. v. Provide for modularity, understandability, and code reuse.

1. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
© 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
BI Tools: 5 Reasons Why They Can’t
Replace Your Healthcare Data Warehouse
By Steve Barlow, Chris Rains, & Michael McCuistion

2. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
The EDW Solution
2
Despite some claims to the contrary, BI
visualizations tools are not good
substitutes for robust data warehouses
At Health Catalyst, we believe an
enterprise data warehouse (EDW) is
the only viable solution for health
systems and physician groups looking
to use analytics to drive sustainable
quality and cost improvements across
an entire organization.

3. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
The Strength of Front-end BI Tools
3
The core strength of front-end BI tools is
visualizing data and exposing it to end
users. With cloud-based solutions this
data is visually available – securely –
wherever and whenever the user
requires access.

4. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
BI Tools Don’t Optimize
Healthcare Data
4
Standard BI visualization tools typically
query data from multiple and separate
sources rather than an optimized repository.
Reasons Why
A BI Tool
Can’t Replace
An EDW
1
Opportunities for error exist when data points are
stored in separate locations. An EDW optimizes
data integrity with single point storage.

5. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
BI Tools Can’t Handle Large
Amounts of Healthcare Data
5
BI tools are burdened with multiple transactions
for data retrieval from multiple storage locations.
Reasons Why
A BI Tool
Can’t Replace
An EDO
2
An EDW is optimized for analytics. It is
designed to facilitate the analyses across
entire populations of patients or events.

6. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
BI Tools Struggle With Levels
of Healthcare Data Granularity
6
Many BI tools cannot handle data at different
levels of granularity. In data warehousing,
granularity refers to the level of detail stored in a
database and how that level relates to other data.
Reasons Why
A BI Tool
Can’t Replace
An EDW
3
Aggregating and digesting one-to-many and many-to-many
relationships in the data requires a sophisticated system,
especially when millions of rows of data are involved.

7. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
BI Tools Can’t Optimize Data
for Multiple User Types
7
Different user types have different data needs.
The EDW benefit comes from a common data
warehouse fit to multiple user requirements.
Reasons Why
A BI Tool
Can’t Replace
An EDW
4
Applying logic to collect, segment and
deliver data to different audiences is
something BI tools simply cannot do.

8. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
BI Tools Don’t Provide Modularity,
Understandability or Code reuse
8
A well-designed data warehouse includes sets of logic that
work well in stand-along sets (for example, two or three files
of code/logic that, combined, show a population with hospital-
acquired pneumonia and specific metrics for that population,
such as readmission rate).
Reasons Why
A BI Tool
Can’t Replace
An EDW
5
BI tools limit the ability to
reuse code and logic.

9. © 2014 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.comProprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
In Summary
9
In short, data-driven
healthcare transformation
requires an EDW.
While BI tools remove the
steps of building and loading
data into a data warehouse,
this shortcut comes at a very
big price. BI tools cannot
provide the consistency,
efficiency, or meet the
analytics demands of today’s
healthcare industry.

10. © 2013 Health Catalyst
www.healthcatalyst.com
Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Postings similar to this one:
How an EDW Enables the Best Healthcare Visualizations
How to Evaluate a Business Intelligence Tool for Healthcare
Written by Michael McCuistion & Chris Rains
Written by Chris Rains