Abstract

Rising healthcare costs and the new Excellent Care for All Act quality legislation suggest a paradigm shift toward a new performance-based healthcare system in Ontario that will aim to improve the quality of care and health outcomes, and lead to more sustainable healthcare expenditures through evidence-based funding. As the province shapes new performance-based policies, hospitals with appropriate information management infrastructures and business intelligence (BI) capabilities will be well equipped with the decision-making tools that will help them adapt their business and operational models to align with these policies, deliver higher-quality care and emerge as high performers. Currently, however, Ontario hospitals find themselves at different stages of information management and BI "maturity" and therefore at different levels of readiness to meet these reforms. In addition to outlining key challenges to developing fully mature information management and BI capabilities, this paper identifies eight key BI dimensions that can help hospitals advance their information management and BI agendas. To stay abreast of healthcare changes, hospitals must assess their current information management and BI maturity and identify the steps they will need to take to overcome gaps and meet demands for higher-quality care in the future.