In 2001, Robert Neal, CPA started a project to look at sources of healthcare business intelligence information that could be used to make better decisions and project business trends in the healthcare industry. This project resulted in the business venture to develop an internet and desktop based product to use publicly available information to provide support for business intelligence in healthcare. Provider Almanac contains healthcare provider based information for the past seven years. Population Almanac will contain population information for the past thirty years. Healthcare Almanac will contain summary information from the two almanacs and project the healthcare financial information for the next fourteen years. The big question in healthcare today is the estimated impact of the baby boomer generation on healthcare utilization and revenue. Also, the other big question is the effect of new healthcare procedures and drugs. Every healthcare provider is expecting increased demand for services. The goal of the almanacs is to provide information about the future of healthcare and an accurate analysis of past performance.
Robert Neal July 1, 2005
When Robert Neal started Healthcare Almanac, he believed the project would take many years and there would be many improvements to the original design done in 2005. Overall, the project has taken much more time to complete than planned. This is due to changes in computer technology and the changes and difficultly of working with government issued data from CMS. The passage of the Affordable Care Act and the looming shortage of healthcare physicians is having a severe impact on the future of the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry is changing so rapidly, that merely projecting future healthcare demand is not enough to help healthcare providers with future business decisions. Therefore, the current direction for Healthcare Almanac is to improve the desktop product and the website. The desktop product will be upgraded with new data sources and graphical features. The website will be upgraded to make access to information as simple as possible. A subscription website will be developed with Hospital information and other healthcare provider information. The website will also have population information to calculate the healthcare utilization in a provider's service areas. The projection of future healthcare demand is going to be delayed until there is a better direction in the healthcare industry.
Robert Neal October 1, 2014