PERSPECTIVE

Leading Healthcare Disruption with Data

As healthcare leaders, we’re no strangers to tight margins. But today’s environment—fraught with labor shortages, declining reimbursements, and shifting patient expectations—tests even the most resilient organizations.

In this climate, every dollar and decision must work harder. The question is: How do we make the right decisions faster and with confidence?

For me, the answer starts with actionable data. Specifically, a system-wide commitment to collecting and sharing real-time data.

However, to deliver on the promise of value-based care — improving outcomes while decreasing cost — we need more than the right data. We need a bold and disruptive vision.

Theo Koury , MD

President of Vituity

Published May 20, 2025

Leveraging Data to Improve Lives

Infrastructure that provides actionable data can support a culture of accountability. And along with aligned incentives, it can accelerate decisions and positive outcomes.

But in times like these, we also need leadership prepared to disrupt the norms.

As healthcare executives, our role is to challenge the status quo, not for the sake of disruption but for the sake of impact. That means pushing the boundaries and reimagining what is possible. Establishing bold goals and trusting our teams with meaningful data. Using that data to inform and enable, not punish.

And it means staying relentlessly focused on the goal: improving lives, for our patients and the people who care for them.

The Power of Infrastructure

Too many hospitals still rely on outdated systems—fragmented EHRs, decade-old billing platforms, and siloed dashboards that generate noise rather than insight. These limitations don’t just slow us down; they blind us to trends we can’t afford to miss.

Strategic investment in analytics infrastructure changes the game. At Vituity, our data tools help hospital partners monitor patient flow, predict staffing needs, and align clinical decisions with financial realities. One of the most powerful metrics we track through our proprietary dashboards is length of stay (LOS), which ties directly to care quality and cost. With predictive models, we can anticipate bottlenecks before they happen, allowing teams to course correct in real time.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the proper data infrastructure pays for itself. We’ve seen this firsthand. Focusing on a single metric (emergency department Left Without Being Seen), we saved a two-hospital system over $2 million in two years.

Vituity’s Expert Clinical Leadership Delivers

Our experienced leadership combined with strong operational support helped Union Health realize significant quality, efficiency and staffing gains.

Aligning Metrics with Mission

Of course, the value of data lies not in collection, but in how we apply it. That’s why at Vituity we always focus on connecting frontline decisions to measurable outcomes. What’s our readmission rate—and which interventions reduce it? How is staffing acuity aligned with census today, not last quarter? Which moments in the patient journey drive satisfaction or frustration?

This is where dashboards come to life. Our real-time data systems are designed not just for the C-suite but also for frontline leaders: the practice administrators managing shift coverage, the medical directors overseeing throughput, and the navigators coordinating follow-up care.

For example, Vituity created a real-time dashboard to measure what we call “discharge efficiency,” a daily tracker that has a direct impact on length of stay (LOS) by measuring efficiency of inpatient flow. When our hospitalist teams achieve an average 25% discharge efficiency, average LOS will sit at around four days. This impacts hospital finances through increased capacity, improved efficiency, and lower cost per patient.

But data alone isn’t enough. Leadership must model transparency, curiosity, and a willingness to let numbers tell the story—even when it’s uncomfortable. At Vituity, we coach our partners to lead with data as a tool for empowerment, not oversight. Accountability follows naturally when teams trust and know how to use the data.

From Insight to Action: EQI in the Field

One of our most impactful patient experience programs is eQI, a digital quality improvement platform. It delivers real-time patient feedback via text and email, surfacing insights on everything from wait times to provider communication. This feedback is visible not just to executives but also to the teams delivering care. That visibility creates a culture of service recovery, rapid learning, and pride in improvement.

At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, emergency department satisfaction scores actually rose dramatically during the pandemic — at the same time such scores were plummeting nationally. That success was partly driven by eQI, which helped the team round on patients more effectively and respond to concerns in real time before they escalated.

And it doesn’t stop with survey scores. Higher patient satisfaction translates into better online reviews, stronger brand reputation, and higher reimbursement under value-based models. In other words, when we listen to and act on what patients tell us, everyone wins.

Elevating Navigation with AI

Another critical application of data is in our care navigation programs. When piloted at five Illinois hospitals, Vituity’s care navigation model reduced high utilizer ED revisits by 53% and 90-day all-cause readmissions by 22%, connected patients to timely outpatient care, and generated over $2.4 million in savings across five sites.

Today, that model has evolved into Rely Health, our AI-powered navigation company, which pairs human empathy with automation. Rely uses an algorithm to identify patients who would benefit from follow-up, engages them via text and phone, schedules appointments, and assists with insurance enrollment when needed. The result? Fewer gaps in care, better outcomes, and more efficient resource use.

A Call to Disrupt — Together

This is the disruptive transformation our industry needs—technology that enhances human touch, scales intelligent workflows, and pays dividends across clinical and financial domains.

We’ve done it before. We’re doing it now. Let’s keep pushing forward—together.

Partnering to improve patient lives

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