SALT LAKE CITY and ASHEVILLE, N.C., June 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Mission Health (Mission), recognized as one of the nation's Top 15 Health Systems, and Health Catalyst announced today a strategic initiative to improve the health of Mission's patient population using a new data-driven approach to quality improvement. The multi-year program will position Mission to further its quest to move to a population health management model – where elegant and sophisticated data analysis of large amounts of aggregated patient information will be leveraged to provide the best and most cost-effective care to each patient on an individual basis.

Taking advantage of proven advances in data collection and analytics, Mission will implement Health Catalyst's Late-Binding™ Data Warehouse (EDW) and Analytics platform. The technology will help Mission discern clinical and operational insights from the terabytes of raw data collected across its network of six hospitals, numerous outpatient and surgery centers, and home health providers that are spread throughout 18 counties in western North Carolina. New multi-disciplinary teams of physicians, nurses, IT experts, administrators and finance experts will use these insights to enhance the quality and efficiency of care delivery provided across the Mission Health system.

"A new era has dawned in health care delivery. Health systems that hope to transform the quality and cost of care must leverage their vast pools of data to help quality improvement teams identify best practices and quickly implement solutions," said Sulaiman H. Sulaiman, Mission senior vice president and chief information officer. "We're excited to be partnering with Health Catalyst to spearhead this transformation for the patients of western North Carolina and improve our delivery of value-based care." 

Commitment to Quality

Mission currently trains all employees in a systematic improvement framework called DMAIC, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. This rigorous method of quality control has set Mission apart from other health systems and was a contributing factor to them being recognized as one of the nation's Top 15 Health Systems from 2012 to 2014 by Truven Health Analytics. Mission is the only medium-sized health system that Truven has recognized for this commitment to quality in three consecutive years.

Building upon Mission's quality improvement foundation, its leadership has taken the critical step to advance its use of data to drive healthcare improvements by implementing the healthcare-specific EDW and analytics applications from Health Catalyst. For the first time, a unified view of clinical and performance data from Mission's Cerner electronic health records (EHR) and other enterprise applications will be consolidated into a single data warehouse that is timely, and actionable. Built using a late-binding architecture proven to deliver quick time-to-value and flexibility for the changing nature of healthcare data, Health Catalyst's data warehouse and content-driven analytics applications can be quickly adjusted to answer pressing questions in minutes instead of the days or weeks previously required using outdated decision support tools and processes. Once implemented, opportunities for care improvements will be at Mission's fingertips leading to better quality at lower cost.

"We are proud to have been selected by Mission Health, one of our nation's top health systems, to help them advance the science and process of quality and performance improvement," said Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst. "Mission's commitment to this extensive multi-year effort to transform its quality improvement program – already one of the best in the nation – is a clear testament to their commitment to deliver the best outcomes, for the patients of their communities."

About Mission Health

Mission Health, based in Asheville, North Carolina, is the state's sixth-largest health system and the region's only not-for-profit, independent community hospital system governed and managed exclusively in western North Carolina. Mission Health traces its roots in the region back to 1885, operates six hospitals, numerous outpatient and surgery centers, post-acute care provider CarePartners, and the region's only dedicated Level II trauma center. Its medical staff consists of more than 1,000 physicians and is certified in more than 50 medical specialties and sub-specialties.

Mission Health has seven Centers of Excellence: Cancer, Heart, Mission Children's Hospital, Neurosciences, Orthopedics, Trauma and Women's Health. Mission Hospital, located in Asheville, is the system's flagship hospital and is licensed for 795 beds. It is the regional referral center for tertiary and quaternary care. It also includes Mission Children's Hospital – the region's only children's hospital. Other Mission Health member hospitals include Angel Medical Center in Franklin, Blue Ridge Regional Hospital in Spruce Pine, Highlands-Cashiers Hospital in Highlands, McDowell Hospital in Marion and Transylvania Regional Hospital in Brevard. With approximately 10,600 employees and 2,000 volunteers, Mission Health is dedicated to improving the health and wellness of the people of western North Carolina. For more information, please visit mission-health.org or @MissionHealthNC.

About Health Catalyst

Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing and analytics company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes perform the clinical, financial, and operational reporting and analysis needed for population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data warehouse (EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more than 30 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Faster and more agile than data warehouses from other industries, the Health Catalyst Late-Binding™ EDW has been heralded by KLAS as a "newer and more effective way to approach EDW." For more information, visit www.healthcatalyst.com, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

For more information contact:
Todd Stein
Amendola Communications for Health Catalyst
916.346.4213
tstein@acmarketingpr.com

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SOURCE Health Catalyst