ikaDWH

Comprehensive, Real-Time Insights for Proactive Quality Improvement and Cost Management

ikaDWH is a truly unique approach to data warehousing and business analytics. ikaDWH combines state-of-the-art Web-based technologies to quickly normalize and integrate any type of data, analyze this data for opportunities to improve the quality of care delivery or reduce costs, and deliver this timely information in flexible, high-impact formats. By identifying cost drivers and opportunities for cost savings, ikaDWH thus becomes an essential decision support tool for optimizing underwriting, predictive, catastrophic and hospital analyses, network design and contracting, pay-for-performance, and employer reporting programs.

Intelligent Data Harvesting and Quality Control

Medical, dental and behavioral health claims, laboratory, pharmacy and encounter data, practice management system and electronic medical record information — any relevant data a health plan requires can rapidly and efficiently enter ikaDWH, either as structured data or XML-formatted files or through direct integration with claims processing or other systems.

ikaSystems proprietary, intelligent data translator, ikaTranslator, transforms all data into the same standard format, automatically performing field identification and mapping, data integrity and format checks, and data verification and validation.

ikaDWH stores the data in an integrated, time-variant and stable relational environment, ready for statistical analysis and decision support. Before any analysis is performed, all data are cleaned and translated; because of the system's efficiency, data can be refreshed as often as a health plan requires, maximizing the impact of all analyses through near real-time information.

Flexible Financial and Clinical Analyses

With ikaDWH’s data warehouse in place, health plans can utilize more than 50 standard reports to answer their most pressing business questions. ikaDWH allows plans to:

  • Identify and track major cost drivers — e.g., high-cost/high-risk members, providers, provider networks, facilities, employer groups, diagnoses and procedures
     
  • Analyze data by key attributes — e.g., geographic location, benefit plan, employee status, relationship, age, gender
     
  • Create unique analytic combinations — e.g., group inpatient cases with outpatient episodes
     
  • Identify and track utilization trends — e.g., claims per enrollee, cost per claim, average length of admission stay
     
  • Generate comparisons and identify significant outliers — e.g., health plan cost per E&M service, duration of therapy, cost per prescription drug, claim per therapeutic category
     
  • Assess performance in various clinical groupings — e.g., major diagnostic categories, chronic conditions, preventive care measures, “avoidable admissions”
     
  • Gain in-depth insight into provider practice patterns — e.g., high-volume providers, network participation levels per specialty area
     
  • Model the potential impact of benefit design changes or provider reimbursement adjustments  
     
  • Channel high-risk/high-cost members into case or disease management programs, or identify opportunities for employer education programs addressing employee health risks

Health plans can add modules of ikaMM, ikaEnterprise’s comprehensive medical management suite, to refine their specific analytic, reporting and workflow needs. Alternatively, health plan “power analysts” can fully access all ikaDWH data for ad hoc queries, even export data into any off-the-shelf analytic tools for further analysis and custom report creation. All ad hoc queries can be stored as templates for future report runs.

Flexible, Highly Configurable Web-Based Communication

Analysts then have nearly unlimited flexibility in how they use or share the valuable information contained in ikaDWH reports. Analysts can quickly drill down into the data to the most granular level, or back up to larger units of analysis. Multilevel role-based and rule-based security gives health plans the ability to carefully control who sees how much data, as well as monitor and track access.

In addition, ikaSystems partners with QlikView, a leading provider of business intelligence tools, to ensure that users at any level of expertise can easily and intuitively configure reports to their organization's specifications. Analysts can add or delete data elements or connect data elements with just a few clicks. Well-designed user interfaces ensure that training is minimal and the path from data to information is clear.

Once reports are formed, they can be exported to PDF, Excel or other formats, facilitating further analysis and communication. Reports can be scheduled to run automatically and be distributed to key personnel.

 

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