More and more providers are getting better at deploying clinical and business intelligence technology to care for their patients and optimize their operations, but fewer have yet taken the plunge to predictive analytics.

[See also: Predictive analytics lowers readmissions]

One hospital that has embraced these future-looking tools is glad that it did.

In the March/April cover story in Healthcare Finance News, contributor Jennifer Zaino profiles Montgomery, Ala.-based Baptist Health in Montgomery, Ala., which was an early pioneer of predictive analytics.

[See also: Analytics means we 'roll up our sleeves']

Comprising acute care hospitals, employed-physician practices, cancer, surgical and imaging centers and more, Baptist Health is deploying predictive algorithms to alert care teams to specific patient’s likelihood of experiencing complications, acquiring an infection or experiencing a recurrence of a problem that could lead to readmission.

"Doing more in real-time while the patient is still with the care team is imperative if we are going to learn to educate patients and address them holistically, instead of treating individual disease processes or incidents one at a time," Katrina Keefer Belt, Baptist Health’s chief financial officer, tells Zaino.

Analytics, she says will be key to "surviving" in a "reformed (reimbursement) environment."

Read more at Healthcare Finance News.

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