Author Douglas Laney is now tackling the topic of Infonomics: the practice of information economics. In his 2017 book, Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an asset for competitive advantage, Laney provides detailed rationale as well as a thoughtful framework for treating information as a modern-day organization’s most valuable asset. This article walks through how healthcare organizations can leverage data to its full potential using this framework and the three principles of infonomics: Measure - How much data does the organization have? What is it worth? Manage - What data does the organization have? Where is it stored? Monetize - How does the organization use data?

1. Healthcare Data Management:
Three Principles of Using Data
to Its Full Potential

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U.S. healthcare is too expensive and
inefficient, with undesirable variation
in quality.
Healthcare organizations need to begin
treating data as a powerful asset and
be willing to invest in a strategy for
leveraging it in order to address these
issues and realize the Triple Aim.
Effective Use of Healthcare Data

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Douglas Laney, author of 3D Data Management:
Controlling Data Volume, Velocity, and Variety, is
now tackling Infonomics: the practice of
information economics.
In his 2017 book, Infonomics: How to Monetize,
Manage, and Measure Information as an asset
for competitive advantage, Laney provides
detailed rationale as well as a thoughtful
framework for treating information as a modern-
day organization’s most valuable asset.
Effective Use of Healthcare Data

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Health Catalyst has been helping healthcare
organizations measure, manage, and monetize
data for more than a decade by using a three-
systems approach for achieving meaningful,
sustainable outcomes improvement.
In this approach, best practice, analytics, and
adoption are brought together to enable system-
wide, sustained outcomes improvement.
The framework asks:
• “What should we do?”
• “How are we doing?”
• “How do we transform?”
The Three Systems and Measuring,
Managing, and Monetizing Data

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The Three Ms of Infonomics invokes a similar three-component system for
health systems to become information savvy.
Laney’s book asks organizations to think about:
The Three Systems and Measuring,
Managing, and Monetizing Data
Managing Data
What data do we have?
Measuring Data
What data do we have?
Monetizing Data
How do we use data to transform?

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With an investment in a robust data analytics
program to measure data, powerful
infrastructure in place for healthcare data
management, and the right tools and
resources in place to monetize data,
healthcare organizations can begin to use
their valuable data asset to its full potential
in order to drive better health and financial
outcomes for patients and providers.
The Three Systems and Measuring,
Managing, and Monetizing Data

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Most healthcare organizations have
embraced the primacy of data to support
evidence-based medicine and the
emergence of value-based care.
However, most have not yet made an
equitable investment to make sure they
are getting the most out of that asset by
putting in place a comprehensive strategy.
This framework of Measuring Data,
Managing Data, and Monetizing Data set
forth by Laney is a helpful guide to
leveraging data to its full potential.
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management

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How to Measure Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
1. Measuring Data is an organization’s willingness
to invest in data as they would a valuable asset.
• How much data does the organization have?
• What is that data worth?

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How to Measure Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
Data is everywhere in a healthcare organization.
Data is constantly being generated throughout the
system through the normal activities of conducting
business and providing services – the billing
system, EMR, prescription writing software, etc.
Most healthcare systems recognize that much of
this data has value, but many have failed to treat
it as they would a tangible asset.

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How to Measure Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
For instance, all hospitals likely know exactly how
many beds they have at any given time. They
know how much a bed costs, and how much it
would be to replace it.
That same kind of rigor is not being invested into
knowing how much data the hospital has or what
the financial impact might be to replace that data.
Laney points to the failure of modern accounting
systems to provide the motivation or mechanisms
to quantify the impact of their information assets.

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How to Measure Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
Consider Allina Health’s Success Story: by
undertaking a data-driven approach to healthcare,
the health system was able realize $125 million in
financial improvements in one year using analytics
that leveraged their highly valuable asset–data.
While it may not be necessary for healthcare
organizations to put a specific dollar amount on
just how much their data is worth, having a
concept of the order of magnitude can be helpful in
driving organizations towards thinking about how
their data could improve the bottom line, whether
through saving money or improving care.

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How to Manage Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
2. Managing Data is an organization’s ability to
track and inventory data like a physical asset.
• What data does the organization have?

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How to Manage Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
Once health organizations have
acknowledged the value of their data
(measuring data), the next step is to
determine where it’s coming from and
how it is stored (managing data).
Effective healthcare data manage-
ment means understanding where the
data is and the ability to get the data
into some form where it can be
appropriately managed.

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How to Manage Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
Revisiting the example of the hospital bed to help
illustrate the difference in the way health systems
treat physical assets, hospitals know how many
beds they have, and they know where those
beds are at any given time.
They may even use RFID tags to track the
movement of these beds. However, does
that same hospital know the origination and
location of all data in its ecosystem?
They know what percentage of beds are in use
at any given time—do they know how fully their
data is being used across the organization?

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How to Manage Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
In his book, Laney tackles both impediments
and best practices for managing all forms of
information assets.
Health systems have many sources of data–
some they carefully track and monitor and
some they don’t, such as data from testing
machines or data from RFID tags used to
manage hospital beds.
It is difficult to promote and control access
to data without a healthcare data analytics
platform in place.

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How to Manage Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
Managing Data in a healthcare organization
means having a data operating system in
place that serves as the foundation for getting
data under centralized control and ensuring its
availability across the organization.
With the Health Catalyst Data Operating
System (DOS™) Solution, data is pulled in
from a wide variety of source systems,
providing a single control point where
individual access rights can be granted.

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How to Manage Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
From there, the organization can establish
data governance and track data lineage as
data is enriched and spread to the edges
of the organization.
The organization knows what data they
have, where it’s coming from, what it
means, who has access, and how fully
that access is being exercised.
With the right management infrastructure
in place, the organization is then in a
position to monetize their data.

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How to Monetize Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
3. Monetizing Data is an organization’s
ability to leverage information assets.
• How does the organization use data?

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How to Monetize Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
A hospital knows how many beds they have
(measure), where those beds are at any
given time (manage), and how much they
can bill for patients needing to stay in
specific room types (monetize).
Laney’s exploration of the monetization of
data shows that this could take many forms.

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How to Monetize Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
It could be taken literally in the ability to sell
data, but in healthcare, the monetization of
data is not just about money.
It means improving the quality of care,
improving patient experiences, lowering the
cost of care that’s being delivered, discovering
new revenue streams, improving the lives of
care providers, or optimizing services.

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How to Monetize Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
In the case of Allina Health mentioned above,
the combination of clinical, operational, and
financial improvement projects resulted in a
massive positive impact on the bottom line.
Thirty million dollars of the realized $125
million impact came as the result of reducing
unwanted clinical variation through a variety
of improvement projects, including lowering
heart failure readmissions, improving stroke
care, improving outcomes for spinal
conditions, and more.

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How to Monetize Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
Once the healthcare organization has the
infrastructure in place to manage the data, they
can then begin to utilize specific tools and
programs to monetize their data.
For Health Catalyst clients, they have DOS in
place to manage their data, and then a suite of
more than 70 applications and analysis tools on
top of DOS to help them monetize their data.

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How to Monetize Data
Using Infonomics for Effective Healthcare
Data Management
They can prevent harm to patients using
Patient Safety Monitor™, reduce the cost of
care using the Corus Suite™, which helps
users understand the cost of care.
They then know where to focus in order to
cut costs, and improve population health
using the Community Care advanced
application to deliver quality data to
healthcare providers.
It let’s providers know how well they’re doing
in treating populations and to identify non-
compliant patients needing management.

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The Value of Healthcare Data Management
Since its inception in 2008, Health Catalyst
has been treating data as a valuable asset
and has been helping health systems do
what Laney recommends: measure,
manage, and monetize the value that
data brings to the organization.
Health systems are generating
an incredible volume of data, and
Health Catalyst is poised to help
its partners leverage this data to
its full potential with effective
healthcare data management.

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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.
Healthcare Data Management: Three Principles of Using Data to Its Full Potential
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Dale Sanders, President of Technology
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Dale Sanders, President of Technology

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Sean joined Health Catalyst in January 2015 as an Engagement Lead. He comes to Health
Catalyst from Valence Health where he worked as a Solutions Delivery Manager and then as
Director of Program Management. Prior to Valence, Sean worked for Northwestern University
Medical School in project and program management with a primary focus on creating tools to
support clinical research.
Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Sean Whitaker

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