Analytics, Planning, Strategy & Improvement (APSI)

APSI is a centralized group that provides Brigham Health, with the data, analysis, reporting, planning, project management and process improvement expertise that it needs to achieve its strategic priorities. Leadership, managers and clinicians access this expertise through one of the five teams within the department. See their descriptions below.

Departments:

Analysis and Planning (A&P):

Analysis and Planning (A&P) consultants support Brigham Health leadership teams, senior administration, management, and clinicians by providing three key services:

• Financial Analysis: Assessing financial performance of existing centers, services, and/or programs to determine opportunities for improvement, as well as address variables driving trend;
• Business Planning: Developing financial models and business plans that effectively evaluate and communicate investment opportunities across new and existing centers, services, and/or programs;
• Other Managerial Support Functions: Supporting stakeholders with ad hoc project requests (i.e., capacity planning, relational analyses between specialty services, staying abreast to regulatory and industry changes and understanding how these could impact hospital financial performance)

Analytics, Reporting, and Insights (ARI):

Analytics, Reporting, and Insights (ARI) is the central analytics resource for leadership, managers, and clinical caregivers, providing analysis, reports, and dashboards to measure efficiency, quality, safety, volume, and patient satisfaction, while also curating and maintaing a data warehouse environment to support these adhoc and ongoing analyses. Analysts and programmers in the group provide this support through two key methods:

• As-needed analysis & reporting, using information from various data warehouses
• The continuous reporting of key metrics through two performance management systems called the Balanced Scorecard and Tableau

Process Improvement (PI):

The Process Improvement (PI) team uses lean six sigma principles to improve the efficiency and experience of healthcare delivery systems.  The PI team is most often sought out as a guide to large cross-functional project teams, to resolve a workflow problem.   We have expertise in flow of people and materials, defect detection and mitigation, process measurement, standardization, and team coordination.  At times, this team may provide improvement education, coaching, or set up systems for ongoing learning and improvement within departments.

The PI consultants guide process owners and teams to:

• Define the problem
• Learn the factors that contribute to the problem and their root causes  
• Identify opportunities for improvement and innovation
• Test changes and measure the impact
• Implement and spread successful changes
• Set up low effort/ high impact systems to sustain the improvements

Strategy Implementation (SI):

Strategy Implementation (SI) consultants offer project management support for high priority strategic initiatives and projects supported by executive sponsors.

SI consultants support project owners in:

• Defining the project goals, phases, milestones, team members’ roles and responsibilities, and timeline
• Executing the project plan and reporting on progress to various audiences
• Developing and implementing the project steady state hand-off plan

Data Science and Analytics (DSA):

The Data Science and Analytics (DSA) is the team responsible for developing data-driven solutions for business problems, using statistical modelling or other data science methods. The team specializes in using data mining and machine learning and using a big data approach that complements the more targeted approach used by the ARI team. The DSA and ARI teams work closely with each other. The DSA team was formed in late 2019, and to date, it has developed solutions in areas including COVID inpatient census projections and capacity management, ambulatory space use optimization, enhancements to ED care transition for end-of-life patients, reduction of wrong-patient errors, and equitable use of information technology by healthcare workers. The data scientists in the DSA team support the operational leaders and local teams through two key methods:

• Big data analysis: Statistically model large amounts of data to rigorously evaluate the impact of operational interventions or initiatives
• Predictive modeling: Apply machine learning to historical data to develop insights about future data