Intent Data in the Healthcare Sector: What are the Hottest Technologies?

Healthcare companies deal with massive amounts of sensitive data. Simply managing and maintaining it is a monumental challenge, but providers also need to extract maximum value from its use. Therefore, our buyer intent data reveals that the healthcare sector is making significant investments in analytics and big data technologies.

The Numbers: Buyer Intent in the Healthcare Sector

Aberdeen’s intent data tracks buyer behavior and content consumption across millions of websites to connect web-based search activity to discernable buyer intent signals. In addition to those intent signals, this data also reveals macro-level trends in the relative interest level for B2B technology. To this end, Aberdeen maintains several industry-focused indices that demonstrate sector-level fluctuation in research activity across hundreds of technology categories. One such index contains over 6,000 provider organizations in the healthcare sector. This is mainly comprised of large hospital networks, but it also includes smaller providers, long-term care facilities, and outpatient clinics.

If we take a six-month view of aggregate activity for this index, focused on technology categories related to healthcare analytics and big data, the findings reveal a discernable bias toward more sophisticated and cutting-edge technologies (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Healthcare Sector Trends Toward AI, Data Visualization

In aggregate, this Healthcare index is showing elevated buyer intent signals in three main areas:

• AI / Machine Learning / Predictive Analytics. Healthcare providers are looking to bring new and sophisticated analyses to the large swathes of data they maintain. This ranges from patient outcome predictions to automated anomaly detection, and other cutting-edge applications.
• Data Discovery and Visualization. A major push in the healthcare industry is a noticeable desire to bring greater analytical thinking activity to a wider variety of roles outside of just the IT department (i.e. the clinical and operational branches of a hospital).  The results show that they see data discovery and visualization technologies as means to facilitate that activity.
• Real-Time Data Capture and Analysis. In some advanced healthcare applications, data is actually captured and analyzed in true real-time (e.g., tracking changing vital signs in the intensive care unit). More commonly though, hospitals are looking to capture more data and bring more analytical activity to the point-of-care, at an interaction point between patient and provider.

So what are the reasons why the healthcare industry is drawn toward these types of analytical technologies? Obviously, the stated goal of any healthcare provider is to maintain and improve the quality of patient care and have a positive impact on outcomes. However, there are other ways that healthcare analytics can impact the operations of a healthcare provider.

According to Aberdeen’s most recent Healthcare Technology survey, organizations reporting a formal and dedicated approach to analytics are seeing substantial benefits above and beyond their peers (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Healthcare Analytics Drives Performance

Data accessibility is a major issue for any decision maker looking for data-driven support. And that problem is often intensified in a healthcare setting. Using the right technologies within the spectrum of analytics (e.g., data ingestion, data preparation), companies with a formal analytics strategy in place can access a greater percentage of data sources with potential for valuable insight.

As is often the case with effective analytics, the net result is increased business performance. Healthcare analytics users are 63% more likely to have critical information delivered on time. The decision process is significantly accelerated. Less time is wasted searching for information and preparing it for analysis. More time is spent developing insights and putting them into action. In fact, those that have embraced a formal strategy for analytics in a healthcare environment are seeing three times the average bed utilization, as compared to those with no analytics in place.

The healthcare world is as complex as it is expansive. Between payers, providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, regulatory bodies, and a host of other stakeholders, the breadth and disparity of data flowing through this ecosystem is enough to make anyone’s head spin, regardless of title or technical sophistication. However, the ultimate end goal for this often cloudy and convoluted industry is patient health. Therefore, it is imperative for healthcare organizations to consistently make better, data-driven decisions.

Aberdeen’s intent data provides a macro-level view of how certain industries and large groups of companies are consuming content, and where their interests lie en masse. However, this intent data also provides a more granular, company-level view, down to the device ID. This level of buyer intent data provides unprecedented clarity into how specific organizations are consuming content, and where they might be making near-term investments.