Todd Evenson, MBA – Vice President of Consulting Services and Data Solutions – MGMA
by Richard Stokes
‘Big Data’ has been a buzz word that you may have heard of over the last several years, particularly if you’re in the healthcare space. If you’re not familiar with it, it refers to large amounts of data that are difficult to analyze and process into any sort of meaningful format because the data set is so large or complex.
For the most part, this issue has been reserved for larger healthcare systems because they have more data and have been collecting it in an electronic format for longer. Today, that’s not so much the case. With the rapid rise of EHR systems over the last decade and organizations such as the MGMA, private healthcare providers are now even more so in a position to have vast amounts of data at their fingertips. But the question is – what do you do with it and how do you figure out what is actually useful to you?
So, this month we are going to be hearing from Todd Evenson, MBA Vice President of Consulting Services and Data Solutions from the MGMA. Todd has been with the MGMA Research Department for the past seven years and has led research projects that focused on the domains of physician compensation and production as well as medical practice finance. He is going to be speaking at the March 2015 session on ‘How to leverage the right data to make great decisions’.
Todd says that this is important today because the amount of data that is now available to managers is simply vast and most don’t even know where to begin. Not only that but determining what the right data is can also an overwhelming challenge.
Some of the new things you can expect to leave with after the meeting are:
- How to identify the “right” data for today and tomorrow
- How to better “consider the audience” when conveying data and information
- Ways to find useful tools to assemble your own “evidence”
When you get back to your practice, Todd hopes that with what you have learned you will put into practice the following things:
- Review your data systems to identity opportunities to extract information and identify external sources for comparative information
- Review your existing reports to ensure they are built with the “audience” in mind
- Create new, elegant reports with the right information to make evidence-based decisions
As is the case with all our meetings this is interactive so please ask questions during the meeting. He also says that there is some great information and tools out there for you to check out:
- Local, State, and National MGMA
- HIMSS
- Data Sanity Preconference at 2015 MGMA Business of Care Deliver Conference https://www.mgma.com/store/packages/mgma-2015-business-of-care-delivery-conference-mgma-data-sanity-package
- Data Sanity: A Quantum Leap to Unprecedented Results, 2nd edition, book, https://www.mgma.com/store/books/printed/data-sanity-a-quantum-leap-to-unprecented-results-2nd-edition
- Better Data Better Decisions, https://www.mgma.com/store/books/printed/better-data-better-decisions
- MGMA Survey Reports. https://www.mgma.com/industry-data/all-data-resources-overview
As ever, this is going to be a very informative session so make sure you register today. Feel free to share this with your peers and colleagues and invite them to attend as well. North Fulton MGMA
