Data Warehousing & Integration
The data warehouse isn’t dead.
It’s just having a mid-life crisis.
In a world where data volume is growing at a rate equivalent to a company the size of Google being created every day, it’s obvious that the same old approach to data warehousing isn’t going to cut it. Add in the need to account for a wider variety and volume of users and data types and the demand for change becomes deafening.
To be successful in modern data management, healthcare leaders must move their infrastructure beyond a singular Data Warehouse, ETL and BI platform approach. Via a new strategy for technical architecture and software procurement, existing DW investments will be able to evolve and co-exist with new and bleeding edge technologies. Making it work requires:
- A flexible and integrated engagement approach, separate from IT
- Strong data governance and documentation
- Technical expertise with a healthcare focus
Coming Out of the Shadows
Batch windows are shrinking or even disappearing as the need for recency and granularity of data skyrockets. At a similar velocity, the demand for data science workers to be able to onboard disparate data at the pace of the business is growing. IT as the gatekeeper in the data procurement process has proven to tie the hands of the business, yielding out-sourced, one-off and shadow analytics structures because the integration and data warehouse infrastructure can’t square with a schema it wasn’t designed for. New data, like new schemas, are a major endeavor for traditional data warehouses, whereas a modern approach to engaging data workers in a modern data infrastructure expects and thrives on change.
A Solution to Shortcuts
Not only is the traditional “One ETL to rule them all” approach likely a bad investment that will not support the variety of data needed to manage a modern healthcare business, it has also been used as a crutch for lack of governance and documentation of data repositories. Without metadata or cataloguing, data being ingested goes through IT, through their tool, into their database. If the business has a new source of data they need combined with core DW data and are crunched for time, they will extract the core DW data and mash that up against their new data source because they can’t wait for IT and traditional ETL tools and processes. Modern tools and approaches to data ingestion policies enable the business to make insightful and timely decisions, while supporting business critical workloads that run the business everyday through well-managed integration and data warehouse investments.
Double Duty Expertise
In addition to an integrated approach with strong data governance, navigating the new diversity of tools and how those tools can augment your existing investments takes experts in data warehousing and integration. Coupling that technical expertise with a healthcare focus is key for payors or providers to optimize their return in any DW or integration investment.
Navigating the New Data World
Data technicians work differently than they used to. They’ve shifted into the business, out of the IT organization, and require new tools and policies that enable them to get insights from traditional core data and new data on the fringe. Can your data warehouse infrastructure handle that? A modern approach that leverages the agility and ability to throttle resources like cloud, and supports a variety of sources and formats, can. If you need a partner with focused expertise to get there, you’ve come to the right place.