Abstracts Category : Other

Physician Practice Survival| The Role of Analytics in Shaping the Future

by Janene J Culumber

This dissertation joins an ongoing discussion in the business management and information technology literature surrounding the measurement of an organizations business analytic capability, the benefits derived from maturing the capability and the improvements being made toward maturity. The dissertation specifically focuses on the healthcare industry in the United States and more specifically independent physician practices specializing in orthopaedics. After an extensive literature review along with expertise from industry leaders and experienced academic faculty, a survey instrument was developed to measure organizational capabilities, technology capabilities and people capabilities which together measured an organizations overall business analytic capability maturity. The survey instrument was delivered to 89 C-suite executives in the target population. A response rate of 36% was achieved resulting in a total of 32 completed responses. The research study provides evidence that improving an organizations business analytic capability leads to an improvement in the use of analytics to drive business performance. The research study also explored whether or not the use of analytics would improve business outcomes. The results were inconclusive. This could be due to the lag time between the use of analytics and business performance. In addition, the study did not have access to actual outcome data but rather asked the CEOs whether or not performance in several areas had improved, remained stable or had declined. This measure may not have been precise enough to provide the predictive value needed. As such, this is an area that should be explored further. Finally, the research shows that over the past two years, physician practices have been focused on and successful in improving their business analytic capabilities. Despite these improvements, opportunities exist for physician practices to further their maturity, particularly in the areas of technology capabilities and people capabilities.