blog

Reducing Patient Costs through Machine Learning and Comparable Supply Categorization

  Written by Megan Bultema, Chief Data Scientist and Jackie Kokx, Data Scientist Until recently, clinical practitioners focused almost exclusively on providing individual patients with safe and accurate treatment. Physicians favoured methods that yielded the best outcome for patients solely on a case-by-case basis.   The needs of the medical sector, however, are changing. An […]

Why Reducing Clinical Variation in Surgery is Crucial to the “New Normal” of Care

When entrepreneurs build companies, they have a simple goal: to progress from an initial concept to a repeatable, profitable business model. For the first few months, the firm builds out its operational model. Then, once it attains the winning formula, it hopefully rinses and repeats. The resulting consistency drives down costs and improves quality, helping […]

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare is Driving Innovation in Data Analytics

Artificial intelligence applied to healthcare wasn’t on the radar ten years ago. Outside of academic circles, relatively few people were even aware of the potential of the technology. It seemed like a distant fantasy. Today, though, that’s all changed. Artificial intelligence is the new trend in innovation, and everyone in the sector is talking about […]

Creating our New Normal Through the Lens of a Healthcare Startup

Superficially, the parallels between a regular venture capital startup and a hospital amid a pandemic seem pretty minimal. One has to do with launching a product, and the other is about keeping people alive. But when you dig a little deeper, you soon find some striking similarities between the two.   For instance, startups often […]

Combine your Powers of AI-enabled Data Analytics, Machine Learning and Expert Systems for Maximum Return

Written by Justin Schaper, Chief Technology Officer and Megan Bultema, Chief Data Scientist Artificial Intelligence or AI is revolutionizing healthcare data analytics and changing the way we predict, learn, and act based on insights gained through AI-powered data models. At Empiric Health, we have learned that solving healthcare problems requires multiple types of solutions and […]

Empiric Health: Using Analytics to Unlock Improvements in Surgery (BurstIQ)

Empiric Health’s partner, BurstIQ, highlights how using the BurstIQ Platform has enabled us to deploy an innovative AI-driven clinical analytics suite in order to identify unwarranted clinical variation, improve patient outcomes and increase the affordability of surgery. Empiric’s core methodology refines surgical cases into well-defined buckets, like Granny Smith apples to Granny Smith apples, and […]

The Untapped Waste in Healthcare Supply Chain is Physician-centric

Written by David Heath and Dan Pietrusinski   According to a recent Modern Healthcare article and Navigant study, hospitals have a $25.7 billion cost savings opportunity – equating to an individual hospital savings of up to $12.1 million per year or the equivalent of 165 registered nurses.1 This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to […]

Doctor Preference Cards: A Recipe for Success

Written by Ann Putnam, RN, MSN, CNOR Every day all types of surgeries are scheduled and carried out in operating rooms across the country. How do the staff know the unique surgeon preferences for each of the procedures on the surgery schedule? How does the perioperative team know what to open and when to hold […]

It’s not just about WASTE in healthcare, it’s also about TRASH

Written by Scott Christensen, MBA, Client Service Executive   According to a recent JAMA review, the cost of waste in the U.S. healthcare system ranges from $760 billion to $935 billion annually.[1] This waste is attributed to administration complexity, pricing, failure of care delivery, overtreatment or low-value care, fraud and abuse, and effectiveness of care […]

Why Healthcare Data Fails to be Information

And How to Build Actionable Insights from Healthcare Data Written by Megan Bultema, Ph.D., Chief Data Scientist and Ben Doremus, B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Data Scientist DATA ≠ INFORMATION It is rare to find a modern healthcare system which does not purport to make “Evidence based decisions.” Even the most primitive surgical settings […]