At Catawba Valley Health System (CVHS), we’ve always known that better data leads to better decisions. But we needed a fast, easily accessible way to get the right data into the hands of the people who need it most.
By leveraging powerful datasets in Expanse that expand visibility into key metrics, we’ve been able to achieve that goal. Today, we’re not just sorting through massive amounts of data — we’re using them efficiently to transform workflows, improve patient safety metrics, and save significant time across departments.
From limited access to self-service analytics
Previously, it was a challenge for us to access and analyze meaningful data, especially for the pharmacy department. Reporting often required specialized technical skills, reliance on limited resources, or manual workarounds.
In some cases, generating actionable insights meant:
- Waiting on report writers or external tools
- Exporting static reports
- Spending hours or days manually filtering and analyzing data
By leveraging ADI (Advanced Data Insights) datasets available in Expanse, we’ve shifted to a self-service model. Even without deep expertise in SQL or data visualization tools, our clinicians and operational leaders are able to quickly build dashboards and extract insights independently.
Real-time insights, real time saved
With self-service analytics, one of the clearest areas of return on investment has been time savings. For example, analyzing our CPOE (Computerized Provider Order Entry) process used to require running large, complex reports, exporting data into spreadsheets, and spending up to three full days manually filtering and validating results.
By taking advantage of MEDITECH’s Business and Clinical Analytics, that same analysis is now fully interactive and accessible in real time. What used to take days now takes minutes, or even seconds. The same benefits apply to our BMV (bedside medication verification) reporting. Manual processes involving printed reports and hand calculations have been replaced with dynamic dashboards that deliver immediate clarity.
Even without deep expertise in SQL or data visualization tools, our clinicians and operational leaders are able to quickly build dashboards and extract insights independently.
Driving measurable clinical improvements
Beyond efficiency improvements, BCA has driven positive outcomes in clinical performance. Using customizable dashboards, we’ve been able to:
- Identify gaps in CPOE performance
- Pinpoint specific provider groups contributing to those gaps
- Take targeted action to improve workflows
As a result, we achieved our CPOE performance goal for the first time, obtaining an “A” grade in our Leapfrog evaluation. Similarly, our BMV performance improved from consistently missing targets to achieving goal-level performance for the first time.
These improvements weren’t accidental. They were driven by enhanced visibility into problem areas, the ability to slice and analyze data from multiple perspectives, and faster feedback loops to support operational changes.
Empowering leaders with data
Putting the power of data directly in our teams' hands has increased dashboard adoption across the entire organization. For example, our pharmacy leadership team relies heavily on a medication utilization dashboard that provides:
- Up to three years of historical data
- Insights into drug usage by location, provider, and inventory source
- Immediate answers to complex questions
This means leaders can walk into meetings with real-time data at their fingertips and use it to support decision-making. In one instance, our pharmacy director presented the dashboard across multiple meetings in a single day, pulling insights in seconds that previously would have been difficult to obtain.
Future value
While pharmacy has been an early success story of data utilization at CVHS, the potential for this effort extends far beyond a single department. We’re already expanding into areas such as productivity tracking, medication reconciliation performance, and clinical decision support optimization (e.g., reducing alert fatigue). In each case, the goal is the same: use data to drive smarter decisions and better outcomes.
At CVHS, data’s transformative power has led to measurable outcomes, putting important information directly into the hands of the people who understand it best. And that’s where real transformation happens.
Learn more about leveraging data's transformative power with MEDITECH Expanse.
