How Decision Support Systems Benefit the Healthcare Industry

Hospital and healthcare leaders need the right decision support tools and a decision support system (DSS) that can help drive their shared goal: to provide high quality care. Healthcare providers of all kinds must be well informed by decision support tools to make the best decisions. Not only do these possibilities need to be assessed, but hospitals and healthcare organizations also need to be equipped with the most up to date knowledge of market trends, targets, and progress within their corporation, in order to do what is best for their patients using their decision support system.

What is a Decision Support System?

Top decision support systems provide accurate, necessary data that hospital leaders can use to assess and understand situations and make the right decisions for their healthcare systems.

These decisions can be extremely difficult to make, especially if there is not a decision support system in place that helps determine what direction to head in. Not only do clinicians need to be informed about these options, but patients themselves need to be aware of decision support impacting decisions being made at their expense, as well. A healthcare team consists of professionals from different sectors of the medical field and administrators, all of whom must come together to share information, ideas, and potential solutions to individual cases. The patient and their family are also part of this dynamic team, and therefore need to be up to speed on what is happening throughout the decision support process in healthcare.

hospital executive reviewing decision support analytics
It is critical for organizations to invest and dig into their decision support system in healthcare.

Why Decision Support Systems are a Standard in Healthcare

Without clinical decision support, all personnel involved in patient care are less likely to fully understand or have access to patient information. When all of the necessary components to a system are not working together seamlessly, in this case the members of a healthcare team, the end result may suffer. There is no reason that any one patient should be affected by the shortcomings of their healthcare providers, especially when the reasoning could be something as simple as poor decision making. Not only does patient care increase in quality with decision support in place, the hospital or clinic’s financial status is improved greatly.

In the past, decision support in healthcare was completed by hand via an analyst. At Strata Decision Technology, we offer a hospital decision support tool and decision support system in healthcare designed with the needs of hospitals in mind. Our user friendly system has changed decision support in healthcare, organizational analytics, and delivery of care. Our comprehensive platform, SrataJazz, is used by over 2,000 hospitals across the country. In the United States alone, 1 in 5 hospitals has integrated our software into their operating system.

a healthcare professional interacting with a patient
A decision support system in healthcare can dramatically improve an organization’s ability to manage costs and drive down the cost curve.

StrataJazz combines the needs of every healthcare organization into one system, used for financial planning, operating budgeting, capital and strategic planning, and decision support. Each component is tied together, promising to improve upon costs, while allowing administrators and physicians to work alongside one another for decision support in healthcare, making decisions that are in the best interest of the patients and the business. By keeping annual expenditures low and guiding decision makers on where and when to save, Strata Decision’s experts will ensure that our customers are working smarter, not harder, when it comes to running an efficient healthcare organization.

The Importance of a Decision Support System for Healthcare Executives

Hospital decision support is made possible through StrataJazz’s decision support tools in healthcare, alongside cost accounting, contract analysis, and consulting. Strata Decision allows our customers the guidance of trusted professionals in the industry who can offer maintenance and maximum utilization of StrataJazz, while saving decision makers’ time in decision support in healthcare. These industry experts will provide sound, proactive advice from the start to end of every project and decision undertaken by the hospital or clinic. By using accurate, current data, healthcare systems can get a better understanding of cost and margins for different markets within the industry. This knowledge can be used as leverage in saving opportunities, increasing efficiency and reducing waste. Patient specific care variations are also taken into account, which result in cost improvements in specific cases that stray from normal standards by determining where money can be saved in these cases. By looking at outside information on markets across the healthcare industry, risk can be assessed productively, resulting in more stable decisions. StrataJazz allows providers to have a better understanding of the contracts that they are operating with, creating opportunity to make more informed decisions on working with payers. These decisions can result in savings that would otherwise not be made aware to the organization, and drive better decision support in healthcare using the decision support tools needed.

a physician reviewing data on a tablet
Physician engagement is key to leveraging your decision support system in healthcare to the fullest.

Decision support tools in healthcare increase patient and clinician knowledge and guidance while navigating through medical care. This knowledge stems from the patient’s past medical history, clinical research, and relevant references, providing a guideline for how the patient should be treated. StrataJazz integrates patient information for physicians to easily access, increasing positive health outcomes, reducing room for errors, and increasing efficiency, by allowing specific cases to be incorporated in analytics. Rolling forecasts, productivity reporting, operating budgeting, and capital and physician planning are included in one platform, allowing for necessary information to be at the healthcare organizations fingertips when they need.

Leveraging Decision Support Tools to Drive Productivity

Organization is key when it comes to the many components of providing healthcare to patients. StrataJazz is an all in one stop for hospital and healthcare decision support. Our system improves staff collaboration and productivity by ensuring all prior, necessary knowledge is accessible so that a plan can be created for maximum care outcomes. StrataJazz is ideal for any healthcare organization looking to consolidate and improve their healthcare decision support, changing their patient’s lives, for the better.

Learn more about how a decision support system in healthcare could help your organization by checking out the following resources: