UCSF Enterprise Information Management and Analytics Program
Submitter
David Dobbs, Executive
Director of Enterprise
Information
Management and
Analytics
David.Dobbs@ucsf.edu
415-502-0112
Project Leader and Team Members
Sandy Ng, MSN, RN-BC, Project Lead
Jeff Love, Project Lead
Doug Berman, Project Lead
Ramesh Doraivelu, Project Lead
Denise Adams
Winnie Wat
Jack Ha
Tricia Ochoa
Edna Sin
Sylvie Faisant
Giancarlo Davis
Dana Ludwig
Galen Laserson
Tim Satterwhite
Background
UCSF has invested considerable time and resources into successfully implementing a myriad of systems (e.g., Epic,
Peoplesoft, EPSi, Ilios, iMedRIS) to support clinical, financial, campus and research activities. These successes
provided a large amount of transactional data that were used to create predominantly static reports focused on
data from individual systems. These reports were useful in managing the transactional aspect of operating a large
health system, university and research organization but did not provide line and senior managers with the
integrated and holistic view of performance, quality and compliance needed to achieve UCSF’s mission of the
being the best organization for caring, healing, teaching and discovering.
Starting 2 years ago, UCSF leadership formed what is now called the Enterprise Information Management (EIM)
and Analytics program (Program). The Program’s charge is to advance UCSF’s ability to care, heal, teach and
discover by providing ubiquitous access to relevant and high quality information and analytics. It performs this
function by collaborating and partnering with clinical, research, education and business customers to organize,
integrate and govern UCSF’s information assets. From these data assets it develops targeted data sets and
analyses that provide important business insights. The Program brought together a number of previously separate
IT teams who were performing ‘siloed’ information management and reporting/BI/analytics activities. These
teams are now under a unified leadership structure and have been able to find efficiencies and synergies by
consolidating skill sets (e.g., business analysis, data management, reporting, BI) and by sharing best practices and
processes.
The Program was charged with developing an EIM and analytics technology platform and set of processes that
could be used to coordinate efforts, whether they are performed by the Program or other UCSF teams who are
performing similar functions in clinical care, finance, education or research.
EIM and Analytics Technology Platform Implementation
The Program has developed an EIM and
Analytics
Technology
Platform
that
incorporates a number of innovative
technologies that work in concert to manage
and govern UCSF’s data and information
architecture. These are: (1) the InfoSphere
Information Governance Catalogue; (2) a
data management environment that
consolidates operational data stores, data
warehouse and data marts; and (3) a set of
business driven dashboards. A high level
schematic of this platform is shown to the
left. The following sections discuss each of
these architectural components.
Figure 1. EIM and Analytics Technology Platform
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UCSF Enterprise Information Management and Analytics Program
InfoSphere Information Governance Catalogue
IBM’s InfoSphere Information Governance Catalogue (IG Catalogue) enables UCSF’s business and IT staff to
document and share information on the meaning, structure and content of UCSF’s data and information assets;
such as operational data stores, data warehouses, data marts, reports and dashboards. The Program has loaded
the IG Catalogue with data definitions and lineage for the Clarity operational data store, the Cogito Data
Warehouse and the Campus’ Financial Data Warehouse. The team has also loaded definitions, calculations and
other related metadata on the 12 QlikView dashboards that have been developed and over 750 metrics that are
part of those dashboards. The Program has an aggressive schedule to build out the information in the IG
Catalogue to include all widely used data and information assets. The IG Catalogue can be searched by business
users to find data and information artifacts. For example, a business user wanting to find the information that is
available on length of stay or service line profitability can search the IG Catalogue and get back a list of reports,
dashboards, databases and business definitions associated with those terms. They can then request access to that
information to meet their business need.
Cogito Data Warehouse
The Program has also implemented Epic’s Cogito Data Warehouse (CDW), which is a star-schema data warehouse
that is populated from Epic’s Clarity reporting data repository. The initial implementation of CDW was completed
in May 2014, making UCSF was one of the first 5 Epic customers to successfully implement the CDW.
Subsequently, UCLA selected and implemented CDW, and UCD and UCSD are also pursing CDW as their clinical
data warehouse. As part of the implementation of the CDW the EIM and Analytic Program thoroughly profiled and
assessed quality and completeness of the data in the CDW and worked with Epic to resolve issues. The team also
updated the CDW’s metadata repository to provide UCSF-specific business and technical definitions for data in the
CDW along with data lineage back to Epic’s Clarity and Chronicles data database. As previously stated, these data
have been loaded into the InfoSphere Data Governance Catalogue.
Analytic Dashboards and Data Governance
The Program’s technology platform and processes facilitated the ease in development of analytic dashboards for
information delivery. An iterative dashboard development process was created that spans the request intake and
prioritization, requirements elicitation, data management and governance, development, testing and
implementation. The Program trained other departments’ staff on the QlikView dashboarding tool and the
iterative dashboard development process so that all dashboards, whether developed by the Program or other
departments, follow the same development process and have the same dashboard architecture design patterns.
To date, 12 dashboards have been developed of which 7 were created by the Program and 5 were created by
other departments. These dashboards contain over 750 metrics. Three of these dashboards, one each for
education, research and clinical care, are highlighted below.
iRocket Student Dashboard
This dashboard was developed for the
School of Medicine’s students to aggregate
student performance records into a single
location. Prior to this, students and advisors
were required to collect information from
various websites and emails to understand
an individual student’s performance.
Because medical students are assessed in a
range of skills using multiple tools, this
fragmented approach made it difficult for
them to track and plan their learning over
time.
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Figure 2. iRocket Student Dashboard – Medical Knowledge Tab
UCSF Enterprise Information Management and Analytics Program
Together with Dr. Karen Hauer and Bonnie Hellevig, a student dashboard was created to securely provide onestop access to individual student performance and the ability to compare themselves to their class aggregate in
the realms of Medical knowledge and Professionalism. Student advisors can also view their assigned students’
information to help them quickly identify students in need of scholastic support. Student performance is indicated
visually to alert both student and advisors immediate areas of attention. Links to established resources are
available, such as video tutorial sessions, resource contact information and more. The dashboard also presents
and reviews performance data necessary to maintain the school’s accreditation. This project provided a platform
that can also be leveraged by other schools at UCSF.
Impact - Students have expressed satisfaction with the tool with improved insight, ownership of learning,
performance and preparation for practice. For Advisors, the dashboard consolidated and provide more timely
information into a single source, reducing the time and effort to understand student performance. This was
evidenced by the consistent and increased usage of the dashboard over time. With release of student scores, a
spike of usage was noticed with up to 19 students on the dashboard concurrently.
Discharges Before Noon Dashboard
This dashboard provides all staff and clinicians the ability to analyze discharge information stratified by service,
unit and providers. It enables trend analysis of the percentage of patients discharged before noon by teams across
the organization, identifying metrics in related areas where opportunities for improvement exist.
Impact
Within a month of implementation
a greater than 20% increase in
discharges before noon was
observed, accomplishing a strategic
organizational goal. The improved
discharge before noon percentages
correlated with an improved ED
door to floor time. Excluding a few
months with union strikes, door to
floor times decreased during
Figure 3. Discharges Before Noon by Unit View
months with increased discharges
before noon. This increase in patient throughput allowed more patients to receive access to critical inpatient
clinical care and increased patient safety, as patients were able to receive the appropriate level of care on the
inpatient floors.
Research Data Browser
To support UCSF’s research mission, the Program
developed the Research Data Browser (RDB), a
self-service front end that allows researchers to
characterize patient populations of interest. The
RBD uses the information in the Cogito Data
Warehouse to enable researchers to analyze the
entire UCSF patient populations by over 50 data
dimensions, such as age, gender, diagnosis and
procedure
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Figure 4. Research Data Browser – Demographics Tab
UCSF Enterprise Information Management and Analytics Program
The RDB permits researchers to have easy access and analysis of de-identified patient without IRB approval.
Researchers are able to quickly and efficiently identify and understand populations and sub-populations. The tool
enables nimble, well informed responses to grant opportunities making UCSF better able to compete. Once an IRB
approval is obtained, the Program has the ability to automatically re-identify the patient cohort selected.
Impact - De-identified patient data guides researchers to design protocols that are well targeted to interesting
population. De-identification of the clinical data saves researchers time by permitting access to data without
specific project approvals. The self-service functionality reduces the time required for researchers to obtain
cohort counts and improves their ability to design research protocols.
For example, using the RDB, Michael Deiner, PhD., a staff researcher in the Ophthalmology Department, identified
his initial research proposal would apply to a smaller than desired cohort. The RBD allowed him to adjust his
research protocol so that it included a large enough potential patient cohort. Further value was found as the
Ophthalmology service used the RDB to avoid 435 hours of manual chart review identifying patients needed to
participate in the study.
In addition, the CDW has influenced the 4 other UCs to join forces and collaborate to form a Big Cogito, a UC wide
data warehouse, to consolidate data among UC medical campuses. This would make it among the largest clinical
data warehouse in the US and has attracted the attention of the vendor, Epic to collaborate with us directly.
While this project is in progress, implications would allow all the UC Campuses to share data, discover best
practices, identify opportunities to work together, create populations with tremendous statistical power that can
fuel development of prescriptive and predictive analytics.
Overall User Impact
In addition, since Program inception, there has been great enthusiasm for dashboards with 50 being formally requested to
data.
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UCSF Enterprise Information Management and Analytics Program
Relevant URLs - access to dashboards require UCSF network or VPN access
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Executive Dashboard – FlashDash: htt://flashdash.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/
Discharge Before Noon Dashboard – Dischdash: http://dischdash.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/
Quality Dashboard – QualDash: http://qualdash.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/
Research Data Browser – RDB: http://rbd.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/
Data Catalog website – http://datacatalog.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/
Dashboard repository – http://bidashboards.ucsfmedicalcenter.org/
Medical Student Resource Repository - http://meded.ucsf.edu/ume/additional-resources-competencydevelopment
Medical Education Bridges Communication information - http://meded.ucsf.edu/bridges/new-irocket-
student-dashboard-launches
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Undergraduate Medical Education information - http://meded.ucsf.edu/ume/student-dashboard
Customer Satisfaction
Dashboard impact on education - “At UCSF, we believe that medical students should have data-based tools to
chart their individualized course through the curriculum, as an important component of the lifelong learning skills
they are developing, asking the learners to provide evidence of competency across multiple domains important to
the practice of medicine.” Karen E. Hauer, MD - Associate Dean, Competency Assessment and Professional Standards, Professor
of Medicine, UCSF
Dashboard impact on organizational goal - “The Dischdash has been an instrumental tool in our institutional
efforts to improve discharges before noon. The ease with which providers and staff can review data in real time
has provided the timely feedback needed to inspire change when the numbers are low and promote celebration
when we are doing well. Without the dashboard, I don’t think we would have achieved our goal last year & then
sustain it this year.” Adrienne Green, MD - Associate Chief Medical Officer
Program impact – “A key aspect of the work performed by this team is the fact that it is leverage-able / re-usable
to other UC Health sites. In fact, the processes, governance models and project planning structures for producing
analytic work products has been shared. The Team has also demonstrated their dashboards to other UCs and has
inspired them to move in a similar direction. They have also packaged collateral and standards that are used to
spin up what they call ‘analytics franchises’ that enable other UCSF departments to get a head start and rapidly
establish self-service analytic work. Truly outstanding and impactful.” Joe Bengfort - CIO
Dashboard process & tools impact on outcomes - “QualDash has met our organizational goal of providing data
transparency for key quality metrics with both high level and drill down capabilities in an intuitive format. The
development process challenged us to really understand our customer’s data needs and forced a higher standard
of data management for our team. The iterative process, led by our IT colleagues was disciplined, productive and
helped to build a strong interdisciplinary team and resulted in a fantastic dashboard.” Brigid Ide, MS, RN –
Executive Director Patient Safety and Quality
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