| | June 201519UTLOOK Healthcare Tech It's Easy to Get Lost When Creating an Enterprise Analytic StrategyBy Nicholas Marko, Chief Data Officer, Geisinger health SystemA few years ago I was driving through Detroit with my wife and some friends on our way to a weekend getaway. My attention was split between their conversations, the directions being dictated from the in-dash GPS, and the few feet of dark road in front of me lined with construction barrels and temporary signage. Suddenly, I became aware of a significant widening of the road and a bit of a traffic jam ahead. I realized upon refocusing my attention to the GPS that it had directed me to the entrance of the Ambassador Bridge. It seems that the GPS had re-routed me around a construction delay via Canada. We did not have our passports on hand, we had no intention of going to Canada that evening, and there was no lawful way to reverse direction in the crowded border crossing queue. When my turn at the immigration booth arrived, the only bewildered comment that I could muster for the border agent was, "But I don't want to go to Canada..." Fortunately he was mildly-amused, and a few illegal (but sanctioned) U-turns avoided placing me at the center of a minor international incident. I drove away with a story that is much more enjoyable in retrospect and an appreciation for the fact that even high-tech roadmaps aren't always as reliable as they seem. Organizational analytic strategy easily can go astray just as easily as my near-miss with Canada that night. Just as Jill (my GPS) failed to appreciate that a diversion around traffic was not a good idea if it required even temporarily crossing an international border, so too can well-intentioned and carefully-constructed analytic strategies encounter fatal problems if they have been built on a conceptual foundation that incorporates some common and fundamentally-flawed assumptions. Let's focus on three key principles which, if ignored, can derail an organization's attempts at building a solid analytic strategy. Principle #1: "Enterprise Data Strategy" does not equal "Analytic Strategy". Once an organization decides that its data represents a valuable resource, there is typically some degree of commitment made to developing an Enterprise Data Strategy EDS. Unless the organization has an executive leader with a background in data strategy leading these discussions, management frequently gravitates Nicholas MarkoCXO INSIGHT
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