Using Data Analytics to Plan for Purchasing A Robotic Surgery System

March 17, 2020

Over the last ten years, hospitals have continued to consider the purchase of robotic surgery systems. Purchasing a robotic surgery system can be a huge decision for a hospital, one that can require a lot of research and speculation.

But when it comes to determining the financial impact of such a purchase, organizations often struggle to anticipate or quantify it. Minimally invasive surgeries requiring the use of robotic systems have had their share of recent press, both for their high costs and undeniable role in moving forward the use of robotics in medicine. However, so far hospital leaders have lacked the ability to model the real life, downstream financial impact that such a purchase could have on their organization.

To help other organizations leverage the insights of our customers, Strata has developed a new set of data visualization templates. These best practice dashboards and reports are built to replicate the methods of some of the best providers across the country, allowing hospitals and health systems to advance quickly by using the methods of their peers. Templates can be easily added to an organization’s preexisting database, allowing them to recreate the same dashboard using their own data.

Many organizations are now turning to data analytics to help them make large purchasing decisions, such as robotic surgery systems. When our clients began reaching out to us for help determining whether such a purchase was worth it, we collaborated to create a robotic surgery system dashboard.

The dashboard pulls together depreciation, supply, and labor cost data as well as outcomes and quality data to help hospitals analyze, model, and track the impact of such a purchase on their entire organization. Organizations can compare cost and outcomes for similar procedures performed with or without a robot across physicians and locations.

But not all organizations are looking to implement a robotic surgery system. One client reached out to us to better understand instead whether they should remove their robotic surgery system. They hadn’t been able to confirm or validate the stories they had been told about how robotic surgeries would save money or reduce time spent by staff in the OR. They had anecdotes, but they needed data to draw a more informed conclusion.

Using the Starter Set dashboard, this hospital was able to let their own data tell the real story of the robotic surgery system at their hospital. The dashboard they built transformed data points into something more visual that they could easily show executives. It also presented real-time data that they could automatically filter to refine, to let them drill into particular procedure types.

The Starter Set robotic surgery dashboard allowed this healthcare organization to see how many surgical cases had involved the robotic surgery system in the last year. They also used the dashboard to compare the amount of OR time required in procedures that used the robotic surgery system to the OR time in procedures where the system was not used.

The healthcare leaders were able to use the dashboard to pull data from their cost accounting system, so they could see these real-time, updated metrics in one place. This helped them consider their organization’s actual experience with the robotic surgery system, to decide the worth of the system to their hospital.

As healthcare continues to shift, adopting more advanced and futuristic technologies within new care environments, hospitals will need to leverage the power of their own data to inform their decisions. For the hospitals and health systems we serve, Starter Set is one way to gain insights and model data with best practices from leading organizations and peers.

To learn more about the StrataJazz platform that healthcare providers are using to leverage data and make more informed decisions, schedule a demo.