Data is beautiful. It’s a powerful tool that, when used properly, can help support sustainment, drive growth, and give us the direction we need when making a critical decision. Not only that, but data can also help us to offer better care to our rehab therapy patients, foster a more supportive environment for our employees, and increase our flexibility through a stronger bottom line.
The problem? Data can be confusing. While we all know that we need to be collecting as much information on our operations as possible, sometimes that isn’t enough. There are characteristics of the data that must be present to enable us to draw the right conclusions and take the appropriate actions.
The better we can understand how to properly collect and employ data in our rehab therapy practices, the more we can tap into those beautiful benefits for ourselves, our staff, and most importantly, our patients.
Relevancy
When it comes to data, most of us probably started on one polarized end of the spectrum. Either we cast too wide of a net and didn’t get the specific data we needed, or we cast too narrow of a net and ended up tracking the wrong metrics or missing out on a key piece of the puzzle. It’s worth noting that this is also something that often falls into the conundrum of “we don’t know what we don’t know.”
Tracking the right data and key performance indicators (KPIs) comes down to one word—relevancy. Is the data we’re tracking relevant to the goals we’re trying to accomplish? For example, if we’re trying to figure out how effectively we’re converting referrals into evaluations, but we’re not measuring conversions by individual traffic source, we may be missing a critical key.
What happens if we’ve got one referral source that’s driving all the traffic? If we don’t identify this, we could make decisions based on skewed data or be unknowingly at a higher risk of losing a significant chunk of our business if that single referral source stops.
The data we’re gathering must be targeted and relevant. If you do want to learn more about some of the KPIs and data sets that are most helpful, check out our free e-book below.
Top 6 KPIs to Understand and Optimize Your Rehab Therapy Revenue Funnel
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Accuracy
The other equally important data characteristic that works hand in hand with relevancy is accuracy. We can measure all of the right things, but if we’re not getting data we can trust, it’s a problem. And while this might seem like a widely understood point, it’s important to point out that accuracy goes further than just getting the numbers right.
Accuracy also refers to things like completeness, timeliness, and the ability to identify outside influences that need to be accounted for.
The Ability to Aggregate and Dissect the Data
Raw data is the proverbial pieces to the puzzle. However, if we don’t have a way to aggregate, break down, and effectively dissect the data—they’re just numbers on a page. And the real challenge comes when the data continues to flow in real-time. Data is not finite.
Arguably, the aggregation and dissection of data is the most difficult step of the process. However, it’s also the most important step where we start to realize the value of the data. We have to be able to draw meaningful conclusions.
Resources and Direction Towards Actionable Steps
Once we’ve successfully pulled out the trends and conclusions from our data, it’s time to put the data to work. Often, many of these situations allow us to rely on our past experiences to know exactly what to do to correct or enhance the trend we’re seeing.
Other times, though, it might not be that clear. For example, if we identify that our patients are waiting too long in the waiting room, what can we do to fix that? Should we alter our scheduling? Lower our volume? Expand our building? Change expectations? Situations like these require additional resources and higher-level insight from experts who are well versed in turning data into decisions.
What is Our Next Step?
The bottom line is this—we have to be able to collect accurate and relevant data, have the means to dissect that data to draw meaningful conclusions, and know what to do with our findings to sustain and grow our practices. And we have to be able to do all of this in real-time without dedicating 100% of our already-short time to doing so.
One option to consider is employing the help of a dedicated software solution designed specifically to help therapy businesses and departments achieve these goals easily in real-time.
Net Health® Therapy (formerly ReDoc®, a specialized all-in-one EHR solution for for Hospital Outpatient and Private Practice, offers managers, directors, and decision-makers the ability to boost efficiency, performance, and outcomes in real-time. Net Health Therapy offers in-depth metric tracking, trend analysis tools, critical documentation assistance, billing assets, and a multitude of essential reports that can help you build that revenue funnel to success.
And the best part? The software recently expanded its data analysis capacities and enhanced the user dashboards to make collecting and analyzing data that much easier.
Schedule a demo now to see what Net Health Therapy may be able to do for you.
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