Projects: Healthcare Management Analytics Lab

A key goal of every health system is to improve access to needed care, while also lowering costs and increasing efficiency in healthcare delivery. As a result, leaders at Comer Children’s Hospital are seeking to pinpoint what services can be expanded or managed to improve patient access, while maintaining a nonnegative margin across the enterprise so Comer can continue to serve an evergrowing population of children in need of timely medical care. Using comprehensive data on patient encounters across their care network, which includes not only the hospital on campus, but also satellite clinics and other partners across Chicagoland, your team will analyze the flow of patients from their initial encounter with the health system to the fulfillment of needed medical treatment. You will then couple these flows with detailed financial data in order to correlate the timeliness of treatment access with subsequent downstream care volumes and financial outcomes. By segmenting according to sources of patients, specialties, and medical conditions, you will identify key areas on which Comer can focus strategically. Through this project, you will develop an in-depth understanding of how hospital finances are managed to ensure the greatest benefit to patients in need of clinical care.