FanRuan Hosts 2019 Smart Data Conference with Over 100 Hospital Executives Discussing Healthcare Data Management

Recently, VCBeat attended the 2019 Intelligent Data Conference hosted by FanRuan Software (hereinafter referred to as “FanRuan”) in Nanjing. The event drew over 1,400 attendees from more than 700 enterprises, with executives from over 50 industry-leading companies delivering speeches. At the healthcare industry sub-venue, more than 100 hospital administrators gathered to explore pathways for data management.

(Main venue, photo provided by Fanruan)

The organizer, Fanruan, was founded in 2006. As a professional provider of big data BI and analytics platforms in China, it specializes in the fields of business intelligence and data analysis, committed to delivering one-stop business intelligence solutions for enterprises worldwide. Fanruan has partnered with numerous healthcare organizations, including Huadong Medicine, Jointown Pharmaceutical Group, Foshan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, and Peking University International Hospital, providing them with business intelligence and data analytics services.

The Intelligent Data Conference comprises a main forum and seven sub-forums, covering seven sectors: securities, futures, and insurance; fashion; electric power and new energy; construction; retail; healthcare; and transportation and logistics. Additionally, the conference features five specialized sessions on data talent, Amoeba management, data governance, enterprise BI applications, and mobile data applications. Today, we have compiled the content related to the healthcare sector from the Intelligent Data Conference.

The Smart Data Conference centered its discussions on realizing value through data applications. At the main venue, speeches were delivered by guests including Chen Yan, CEO of Fanruan; Yang Yang, Dean of the Fanruan Data Application Research Institute; and Ding Xiangming, General Manager of the Intelligent Data Services Domain at Huawei Cloud. In the healthcare industry sub-venue, presentations were given by Zheng Wei, Director of Fanruan’s Healthcare Division; Li Li, CIO of Peking University International Hospital; Xu Huachun, Marketing Director at Hisense (Qingdao); Tang Fan, CIO of Aier Eye Hospital; Song Ding, IT Strategy Consulting Director at Beijing Amcare Women’s & Children’s Hospital; Chang Xiaofeng, Financial Director at Shanghai Jian’an Hospital; and Gong Xiaohui, President of Qingdao Lianchi Maternity and Infant Hospital.

Based on the speech, it is evident that the healthcare industry is currently highly focused on leveraging data to generate value.

China’s healthcare informatics sector faces challenges such as inconsistent standards for informatization construction, a fragmented competitive landscape, and low market concentration. How can we address the fragmentation of health information? How can we break through the deadlock caused by heterogeneous hospital systems? And how can medical data be leveraged to generate value? Centering on these hot-button industry topics, the Smart Data Conference featured in-depth insights from leading experts in data management, seasoned healthcare professionals, and hospital presidents.

Why Does FanRuan Focus on Business Intelligence Platforms? Chen Yan stated, “Developing data analytics tools is our core competency, and our goal is to transform data into genuine productive force. Even with the simplest two-dimensional reports, we can help enterprise users reduce production costs by RMB 200 million. In assisting enterprises to cut costs and enhance efficiency, BI holds an irreplaceable position. Therefore, the BI platform is FanRuan’s primary strategic focus for achieving this objective.”

(Chen Yan, CEO and Co-founder of FanRuan)

Choosing the BI platform as the primary strategic focus, how does Fanruan enable data to generate value? Yang Yang provides an interpretation from three perspectives: data credibility, depth, and speed.

(Yang Yang, Dean of the Fanruan Data Application Research Institute）

First, credible data is essential. Issues such as data fabrication, missing data, and excessive dirty data make it difficult to derive value from data. Therefore, data processing is required. By establishing data standards, developing platform planning, and implementing maintenance mechanisms, redundant and dirty data can be transformed into high-quality data.

Second, construct data models and business models. The data model refers to storing data in a data warehouse based on the internationally recognized ten major subject area models, ensuring unified metric integration. The business model involves developing data marts according to front-end requirements, covering areas such as supply chain, production, marketing, risk control, and performance management. A set of valuable data can truly deliver value to an enterprise only when it is deeply aligned with specific business scenarios, provided that data quality meets standards and data definitions are consistent.

Finally, data must be provided in a timely manner. Data is context-dependent, and different charts have their own characteristics in practical applications; however, the timeliness of data must be ensured, as outdated data is ill-suited to adapt to a rapidly changing market.

Yang Yang believes that data can be applied in specific scenarios such as precision marketing, customer satisfaction surveys, cost reduction, and efficiency improvement. However, it is necessary to enhance the data literacy of enterprise managers, strengthen data analysis tools, and improve the management chain for data application.

How Is Data Management Applied in Hospitals? Zheng Wei explained: “First, integrate hospital-wide data and perform data cleansing on selected datasets to prepare the data sources. Second, conduct data analysis to generate reports. Third, utilize functions and analytical features to analyze dashboard pages. Fourth, employ charting modules to visualize small-volume datasets, achieving basic chart representation. Fifth, design visualization dashboards capable of displaying large volumes of data to realize comprehensive data visualization. Sixth, systematize the visualization dashboard framework to enable omnichannel display across large screens, PCs, tablets, and mobile devices.”

(Zheng Wei, Director of the Healthcare Division at Fanruan)

Data analytics can help hospitals achieve data transparency and support management decision-making. In terms of data management and application, Dr. Gong Xiaohui, President of Qingdao Lianchi Women’s and Children’s Hospital, provided a model for the attending guests.

Qingdao Lianchi Women and Children’s Hospital is a maternity hospital under Lianchi Medical Group and the first hospital in Qingdao to receive international JCI accreditation, having opened in 2016. The other two hospitals under Lianchi Medical Group are Zibo Lianchi Women and Children’s Hospital, a Grade II Class A hospital that opened in 2004, and Zibo Lianchi Orthopedic Hospital, which opened in 2014.

Gong Xiaohui stated, “To build a hospital with high patient satisfaction using data, we must first establish a reliable Hospital Information System (HIS) to ensure the interoperability of patient medical records across different campuses and departments. Second, we need to integrate data from various business modules, such as outpatient and inpatient services, enabling physicians to access patients’ complete medical histories. Finally, we must ensure that patients’ medical records from different time periods are readily queryable.”

(Gong Xiaohui, Operating President of Qingdao Lianchi Women and Children's Hospital)

Currently, Qingdao Lianchi Women and Children’s Hospital has achieved continuity in clinical informationization through ACC. Physicians can access patient assessments, interventions, treatments, outpatient medical records, discharge summaries, and other information via an integrated platform, thereby ensuring continuity of care. Leveraging this continuous data, the hospital can digitize business processes and standardize data forms, enabling the establishment of standards and the delivery of higher-quality services.

Qingdao Lianchi Women’s and Children’s Hospital has also established a hospital-wide dynamic data display system. This system clearly presents operational data from the time of its opening to the present, supporting year-over-year comparisons and real-time monitoring of key business performance indicators. Based on outpatient data, Gong Xiaohui formulated customer service standards, which led to an increase in the obstetrics follow-up visit rate, a rise of 12,000 visits in the obstetrics outpatient volume, and an increase of over RMB 7 million in obstetrics outpatient revenue. Gong Xiaohui remarked, “When everyone contributes through data, the resulting power is immense.”

Based on drug proportion data, Gong Xiaohui implemented measures to reduce the hospital’s operating costs. She cited an example: “In July this year, I reviewed the drug proportion and found that one particular medication was being prescribed excessively, yet it offered almost no profit margin. Therefore, without compromising therapeutic efficacy, we procured alternative products with a better cost-performance ratio, thereby achieving cost control.”

Qingdao Lianchi Women’s and Children’s Hospital also implements precision marketing based on customer profiles, thereby attracting more patients. This demonstrates the immense power of data, a veritable gold mine that has yet to be fully exploited.

Data informatization construction and data governance are challenges faced by many enterprises and hospitals. Amcare Medical Group (hereinafter referred to as “Amcare”) shared extensive experience in these areas during its presentation. Song Ding stated, “With the support of Fanruan, we have developed over 300 reports and expanded functionality, effectively empowering business decision-making.”

Amcare, established in 2006, is a group-oriented high-end private women’s and children’s hospital network. Amcare operates ten facilities, including six women’s and children’s hospitals, one general practice outpatient clinic, and three postpartum care centers, with service coverage extending across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta. Amcare primarily provides seven core services: obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, internal medicine, reproductive health, medical aesthetics, and postpartum care.

In the maternal and infant healthcare industry, delivery volume serves as a key indicator of a hospital’s operational capacity. By the end of 2018, Amcare’s cumulative delivery volume had surpassed 50,000, with its Beijing facilities accounting for 50% of all deliveries at private women’s and children’s hospitals in the city.

How Did Amcare Achieve Such Strong Performance? High-quality services and medical expertise are essential for a hospital, while positive word-of-mouth also plays a significant role. Furthermore, aspects such as patient acquisition, service delivery, and clinical decision support are equally critical, all of which rely heavily on the hospital’s data infrastructure development.

Data infrastructure development can help hospitals implement precision marketing, reducing customer acquisition costs while increasing patient volume. By digitizing service workflows and establishing service standards, data infrastructure enables hospitals to deliver superior patient experiences, thereby enhancing their reputation. Furthermore, it supports hospital administrators in making scientific, evidence-based decisions by providing comprehensive and accurate digital insights.

Song Ding introduced Amcare’s journey in information technology development during his speech. He stated, “Our data analytics platform has been continuously evolving—from recognizing data as a challenge to leveraging it for problem-solving.”

(Song Ding, Director of IT Strategic Consulting at Amcare)

Amcare has built a 50-member informatics team, led by the Group CIO. Aligned with the group’s business strategy and guided by a group-wide development perspective, the team formulates an informatics strategy that supports and drives the achievement of corporate strategic objectives. By leveraging forward-looking information technologies and keen insights into industry trends, the team organically integrates the medical industry chain, fosters innovative business initiatives, and facilitates the introduction of new businesses or strategic transformations, thereby enhancing the group’s brand value.

Targeting business partners, the team leverages information systems to standardize the Group’s medical and other business service processes, supports the establishment of a business information system, facilitates convenient and efficient service delivery, and provides software system support for market expansion.

In 2016, Amcare’s information technology infrastructure reached a turning point. Prior to this, Amcare’s information systems suffered from data silos. The system also required dedicated server rooms and personnel for operation and management, imposing financial pressure on the hospital and resulting in inefficient use of spatial resources.

Therefore, in 2016, Amcare undertook a comprehensive overhaul of its clinical system framework and launched TrakCare, a new enterprise-wide Hospital Information System (HIS) product. This initiative targeted the clinical ecosystem to eliminate information silos and established the business system foundation necessary for achieving unified and standardized data management.

Amcare’s Data Governance Journey Has Progressed Through Three Stages, Achieving Data Standardization, Metricization, and Real-Time Processing.

In the first phase, the IT team worked closely with business units to establish a unified set of operational and quality control data standards through consulting methodologies. This involved clarifying data definitions, standardizing data metrics, and regulating collection points and timing, thereby realizing the group’s vision of maintaining a single source of truth for all data.

In Phase II, Amcare established group-wide data metric monitoring. This system enabled the tracking of performance against targets at both the group and hospital campus levels, covering financial, sales, and workload metrics, thereby providing management with comprehensive oversight of operational status.

Song Ding provided an example: based on statistics for the cash collection completion rate, managers can monitor the month-to-date cash collection performance on a daily basis. Leveraging these data and actual business needs, managers can formulate market strategies and arrange subsequent tasks to enable the sales team to achieve targets efficiently.

In Phase III, Amcare began focusing on the transition from non-real-time to real-time data capabilities to trace and analyze the root causes of issues. Upon achieving real-time data integration, mid- and senior-level management at the hospital campus gained the ability to monitor operational status in real time, leveraging this data to support business decision-making.

Taking real-time outpatient data as an example, administrators can adjust medical resources based on this data to shorten patient waiting times and improve service quality. By reviewing the appointment schedules for departments and physicians on a given day, administrators can rapidly optimize resource allocation. Furthermore, real-time data enables the formulation of strategies to enhance patient satisfaction by monitoring wait times for specific services, such as consultation durations and ultrasound examinations.

In terms of information technology development, Amcare plans to pilot the optimization of new system products and business operations in the Beijing region, before replicating this model at its other facilities in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and other areas. Additionally, Amcare intends to leverage large-screen displays to visualize correlated data, uncover interconnections among data sets, and unlock greater value from its data assets.

Finally, Song Ding stated, “Amcare has made more data accessible on mobile devices, facilitating managerial review. Data governance is an ongoing, evolving endeavor; as business operations become more clearly defined, the scenarios for data utilization will increasingly diversify and expand.”