REDi Health Analytics has announced collaboration with a state health department to enhance data capacity and healthcare delivery across six rural hospitals.
The collaboration aims to address healthcare disparities by empowering data-driven decision-making in these resource-constrained facilities.
REDi Health co-founder John Wadsworth said: "This programme laid the groundwork for identifying key opportunities, and now rural hospitals are investing in change management to capture savings by redesigning workflows based on data-informed best practices in partnership with REDi Health."
Rural hospitals often face significant challenges due to limited resources and lack of integrated data systems, which can impede the delivery of equitable and high-quality care.
REDi Health's intervention is aimed at bridging these gaps, thereby improving not only the operational efficiency of these hospitals but also their financial stability.
The company’s effort has identified potential revenue of more than $5m from contract discrepancies at one hospital, in addition to significantly enhancing denials management.
Another hospital benefited from identifying more than $1m in under-compensated Medicaid revenue following a system upgrade, with the state allowing the re-billing and recovery of the funds.
The programme's effectiveness lies in its focus on critical areas, such as leveraging data insights to streamline operations and optimise reimbursements.
It has established 42 clinical registries across the six hospitals, improving chronic disease management and operational efficiency by enabling timely interventions for at-risk patients.
These registries cover various areas, including diabetes, medication/opioid use, sepsis, infant mortality, women and newborn services, readmission reports, cancer registry, and Covid-19.
The initiative also incorporates demographic data to ensure culturally competent treatment and enhances the preparedness of rural hospitals for public health emergencies through improved data sharing and reporting.
The success of the project is largely attributed to the hospitals' commitment to embracing data analytics, which includes standardising data collection, developing clinical registries, automating tasks, and training staff in effective data utilisation.
