WFUBMC, one of the nation’s preeminent academic medical centers, is an integrated health care system that operates 1,056 acute care, rehabilitation, long-term, and psychiatric care beds, as well as outpatient services, community health, and information centers. In the latest issue of U.S. News & World Report’s list of America’s Best Hospitals, WFUBMC was listed in 8 categories as among the best in the nation. It is also listed in U.S. News & World Report’s list of America’s Best Graduate Schools. The MedicalCenter has numerous subsidiary or affiliated hospitals and operates more than 100 outreach activities throughout the region, including satellite clinics, health fairs, consulting services and medical director services.

WFUBMC presently has two separate Data Warehouses, and have decided as a strategic goal to move to a single EDW. They have engaged Classic Computers to begin building their unified EDW. The first phase will consist of a set of executive-level dashboards showing performance in the patient care space encompassing Clinical, Operational, Financial and Regulatory metrics. The goal is to provide timely delivery of easily accessible, consistent summary data across the enterprise. Future phases are planned to provide more sophisticated analytics around patient care, as well as providing Business Intelligence and Analytics around Service Excellence, HR, Academic, Revenue, and Supply Chain.

Classic Computers Solution

WFUBMC became a new Classic Computers client in April 2010, to perform a review and assessment of their existing data warehouse and BI program as a starting point for helping them develop their multi-year roadmap to establish the single EDW. Although the MedicalCenter relies upon Oracle as its database platform, the HCLDM was a key element of Classic Computers’s solution approach and value proposition, along with our Hospital Analytics KPIs and dashboard templates.

After developing an EDW roadmap for Wake Forest, Classic Computers continued to provide design and build expertise. Wake Forest chose the Microsoft Suite, including HIS, and Biztalk for ETL; SSAS and, SSRS for BI, and SharePoint as a portal. As of Spring 2011, upwards of 50 metrics have been brought live over multiple areas, including:

• Access – both ambulatory and inpatient, with metrics covering Appointments, Bed Occupancy, Telephone Calls, Clinical Encounters, Clinic Statistics, and Census.
• Finance – multiple metrics covering case mix adjusted equivalent discharge (CMAED), a measure which includes outpatient and inpatient services, and RVU’s (RVU is an acronym that stands for “relative value unit.”. An RVU is a dollar amount that is assigned to each encounter, procedure, or surgery).
• Operations – metrics covering CMI (Case Mix Index), Length of Stay, Admissions, Discharges and Transfers
• Quality – metrics covering Mortality and Re-admissions

“The EDW gives the staff visibility into areas of hospital operations we just didn’t have before” says Paul Barenberg, AVP for Data Warehousing at Wake Forest. “Previously, the data came from multiple sources, with much manual manipulation required to present. Now we have automated extracts and quality checking so we are presenting timely, accurate data with a much shorter lag time and much higher reliability than before.”