Healthcare

Turn fragmented healthcare data into unified intelligence for better patient care and operational efficiency

Meet Elena & Thornstruck Regional Health System

Elena Medico

Chief Data Officer

Thornstruck Regional Health System

Healthcare provider

Serving 2.2 million patients annually with $3.8B in revenue

* Elena isn’t a real person but a composite of clients we’ve worked with in the past.

  • Network of 7 hospitals, 35+ outpatient centers, and 3 specialty care facilities
  • Serves 2.2 million patients annually with $3.8B revenue and 14,000 employees
  • Rapid growth through acquisitions as dominant New Jersey healthcare provider
  • Elena (CDO) has 15 years healthcare analytics leadership experience
  • Leads 12-person data team focused on patient care, operational efficiency, and strategic decision-making
  • Create a unified patient view accessible across all care settings, enabling seamless coordination between specialists, hospitals, and outpatient facilities to improve continuity of care.
  • Establish consistent data definitions and governance for critical business metrics, ensuring everyone from clinical staff to executives is working from the same information foundation and can trust the data they use.
  • Dramatically reduce manual data processing by implementing automated solutions that free her team from repetitive validation tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives that drive real business value.
  • Enable advanced analytics capabilities that support both immediate operational improvements and strategic initiatives like AI-powered clinical decision support and predictive population health management.
  • Generate substantial ROI through improved data efficiency, targeting $18M+ in operational savings while simultaneously improving patient outcomes, satisfaction scores, and regulatory compliance.
  • Position Thornstruck as a leader in data-driven healthcare by establishing a scalable, future-proof data architecture that attracts both top talent and strategic partnerships.
  • Patient information remains hopelessly fragmented across 17 disparate systems accumulated through years of growth and acquisitions, making it nearly impossible to construct a complete view of patient journeys without extensive manual effort.
  • Inconsistent metadata definitions plague analytics efforts, with fundamental terms like “physician,” “specialist,” and “procedure” defined differently across divisions, rendering enterprise-wide analysis meaningless and preventing reliable conclusions from being drawn.
  • Operational data silos between departments like billing, appointments, and clinical outcomes make consistent performance tracking impossible, hindering efforts to optimize operations and improve care delivery across the organization.
  • Resource constraints force inefficient processes where her team spends approximately 65% of their time on manual data validation and reporting rather than strategic initiatives, while competing priorities and budget limitations delay critical data infrastructure investments.
  • Compliance risks grow more concerning with several near-misses on HIPAA violations already occurring, creating anxiety about potential regulatory penalties that could significantly impact both finances and reputation.
  • Cultural and technical resistance from both legacy systems and established workflows makes transformation challenging, as physician resistance to standardizing documentation practices collides with technical limitations of aging infrastructure.

The pressure on Elena has intensified after Thornstruck’s recent board meeting, where the CEO announced plans to pursue value-based care contracts requiring sophisticated data analytics capabilities. Simultaneously, a compliance audit flagged inconsistencies in patient records that could trigger regulatory penalties. Elena needs to demonstrate significant progress or risk losing executive support.

As she navigates these challenges, Elena needs a partner who understands healthcare data complexity and can provide practical solutions that deliver measurable business value.

Do Elena's challenges sound familiar?

Turn healthcare data chaos into actionable intelligence

DataCatalyst works with large healthcare organizations to optimize business value through data management and data governance. Our unique Accelerate methodology provides healthcare providers, payers, and life sciences companies with a battle-tested framework tailored to your industry’s unique challenges.

With a 100% success rate, we help transform complex, siloed data across multiple systems into a unified source of truth that drives improved patient outcomes, regulatory compliance, and operational excellence.

Is your data undermining care instead of supporting it?

In healthcare, data management and data governance issues create substantial operational and financial challenges.

  • Duplicate patient and member records across claims, eligibility, and care management systems lead to compliance problems and inefficient operations.
  • Mismatched patient identifiers between systems delay critical processes like prior authorizations, directly impacting patient outcomes.
  • Inconsistent definitions of key terms like “physician” across different divisions make it impossible to draw accurate conclusions from data analysis.
  • Operational data silos between departments such as billing, appointments, and clinical outcomes prevent consistent performance tracking.
  • Inability to manage patients holistically across specialists, hospitals, and urgent care locations hinders coordinated care.
  • Poor data quality characterized by outdated definitions leads to incorrect KPIs and flawed decision-making.
  • Manual data validation and reporting processes consume valuable time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
  • Difficulty interpreting information across dozens of systems to create a single patient view complicates care coordination.
  • Ineffective consent management creates challenges for HIPAA-compliant data sharing with partners like Accountable Care Organizations.

These data challenges have profound consequences beyond operational inefficiencies, impacting patient care, financial performance, and regulatory standing.

  • Tens of millions in regulatory penalties from HIPAA fines and CMS audit failures due to data inconsistencies.
  • Worsened patient outcomes resulting from delayed prior authorizations and fragmented care coordination.
  • Financial losses from claim denials due to data mismatches and inaccurate risk adjustment coding.
  • Inability to monetize valuable data assets due to poor data quality and governance.
  • Flawed decision-making based on incorrect KPIs and inconsistent metrics.
  • Operational inefficiencies from manual reconciliation processes and time-consuming data validation.
  • Missed opportunities for care coordination and population health management due to fragmented patient data.
  • Compliance risks without proper data governance frameworks to ensure consistent, accurate information.

Without a unified, accurate view of your healthcare data, both operations and patient care suffer needlessly.

Gain control of your healthcare data

DataCatalyst specializes in data management and data governance solutions for healthcare organizations across the ecosystem.

Master Data Management (MDM)

We implement MDM solutions to establish a single, authoritative source of truth for your critical healthcare data.
Patient/Member Data MDM
Create golden patient records by matching and merging patient data across systems to reduce duplicate records and enable a comprehensive care view.
Standardize physician information, credentials and affiliations to improve network management and referral processes.
Establish a single view of core clinical data entities to support care coordination and quality measurement.
Harmonize claims data (Member, Provider, Plan, Procedure, Contract, Location etc) to improve processing efficiency and reduce claims denials.

Data Governance

We help establish comprehensive governance frameworks to ensure data quality, compliance, and effective management.
Data governance charters and policies

Develop tailored policies and procedures that address healthcare regulatory requirements and support improved patient care through reliable data.

Establish consistent data stewardship roles and responsibilities across clinical and administrative domains, creating clear ownership of physician, patient, and treatment data.
Implement data access and sharing protocols to ensure HIPAA-compliant data sharing between providers, payers, and other healthcare entities.
Create standardized business glossaries and data dictionaries to eliminate inconsistent terminology across divisions, preventing the misinterpretation of critical healthcare terms.
Develop ongoing quality assurance processes to maintain high standards for critical healthcare data supporting patient care, risk adjustment coding, and regulatory compliance.

Data Strategy

We’ll help you develop a comprehensive data strategy that aligns with your business objectives.

Business goals workshop

We first assess your organization’s strategic objectives and identify how data can support long-term business goals.

We evaluate your existing data landscape to identify gaps, compliance risks, and opportunities.
We help your clinical and business stakeholders envision an ideal future state that supports both patient care and operational efficiency.
We create a practical roadmap with realistic, achievable phases designed to deliver value quickly while building toward a comprehensive data infrastructure.

Drive better outcomes with data and our unique Accelerate methodology

The Accelerate methodology is our battle-tested approach to guiding healthcare organizations through the entire data lifecycle.

Developed through hundreds of successful implementations, Accelerate takes a holistic view of your healthcare organization, considering not only immediate data needs but how data management, governance, and monetization impact patient care, compliance, and operational efficiency.

Holistic understanding of your organization
We assess data opportunities across your entire healthcare ecosystem – from clinical systems and EHRs to claims processing and care management. This comprehensive view helps us connect siloed data and create a unified platform that supports both clinical excellence and administrative efficiency.
Unlike purely technical implementations, our Accelerate methodology ensures business and clinical needs drive requirements. Through collaborative workshops, we map your current and future state processes to ensure data management and governance efforts directly support goals like improving patient outcomes, reducing claim denials, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Our “gray-haired SWAT teams” of seasoned experts bring both deep technical knowledge and industry experience to each project. These purpose-built teams focus on speed and efficiency, providing you with direct access to senior talent throughout the engagement – not junior consultants learning on your time.
We use cost-effective means to create value quickly. By prioritizing critical data elements like patient identifiers, provider information, or claims data for initial implementation, we reduce scope creep and accelerate return on investment. This approach is particularly valuable for healthcare organizations that need to see tangible improvements in compliance and operational efficiency.
Our methodology balances structured planning with flexibility, allowing you to realize business value quickly and then implement new requirements progressively. This helps healthcare enterprises manage the complexity of integrating clinical, financial, and operational data across multiple systems without disrupting ongoing patient care.
We recognize that successful data initiatives require more than just technology. Our approach focuses on promoting ownership and understanding of data across your organization, fostering a data-driven culture where clinical, administrative, and technical teams all work from a single source of truth.

Accelerate doesn’t just deliver a technical solution – it creates a sustainable framework for ongoing data management. We help establish the operating model and organizational structure to keep your data clean and consistent long after implementation, ensuring continued compliance, efficiency, and improved patient care.

The result? A comprehensive data foundation that enables better decision-making and operational excellence across your enterprise, implemented by experts who will challenge your thinking, drive meaningful change, and ensure lasting success.

Achieve healthcare data excellence and improved outcomes

Enhanced patient care and outcomes

  • Create unified patient/member views across care settings
  • Accelerate prior authorizations and care approvals
  • Improve care coordination and continuity
  • Support evidence-based decision making

Operational excellence

  • Reduce claim denials through improved data quality
  • Streamline billing and revenue cycle management
  • Eliminate manual reconciliations and validations
  • Enhance reporting accuracy and consistency

Regulatory compliance and risk reduction

  • Minimize HIPAA violations and CMS audit failures
  • Ensure proper consent management
  • Improve accuracy of regulatory reporting
  • Create audit trails for data changes and access

Strategic advantages​

  • Enable population health management initiatives
  • Support value-based care programs
  • Provide foundation for AI/ML in clinical decision support
  • Create potential for responsible data monetization

We don’t just ‘do’ – we drive

We are wholly committed to driving success, not simply implementing tools.

Our teams actively question and challenge clients throughout the engagement, pushing beyond conventional thinking to identify the best possible solutions. We don’t simply agree with stakeholders – we engage in productive disagreement when necessary to ensure the right decisions are made. This consultative approach ensures your data initiatives deliver maximum business value rather than just technical implementations.

Client Success Stories

Data, rewired: How a global electronics manufacturer’s data transformation supported 20% sales growth

Data terra firma: How a global flooring leader eliminated data silos to boost cross-selling

Take the first step toward healthcare data excellence

Request a complimentary DataCatalyst Health Check to identify your most critical data challenges and opportunities. Our team of healthcare data experts will provide insights into how your organization can transform fragmented data into a strategic asset that drives improved patient care, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency.

Request a Health Check