Using data and technology, organizations can now move beyond simply tracking the past to anticipate the future through the use of predictive analytics, technology that learns from experience [data] to predict the future behavior of individuals in order to drive better decisions. Predictive analytics is now becoming more applicable to health care, and will eventually become essential for health centers to improve patient care, reduce costs, and negotiate favorable contracts with payers.

Health centers can utilize predictive analytics in a multitude of ways, furthering its consideration and implementation of patient engagement, patient compliance, chronic disease management, regulatory compliance, avoidable deaths, hospital readmissions, public health, waste and abuse, and health outcomes. And this is only the beginning. Predictive analytics is in its infancy within health care, and the exponential pace of technological advancements will identify additional uses and benefits we have yet to consider.

• Define predictive analytics
• Provide an overview of its history and development
• Address the data and resources needed to predict a patient’s future behavior
• Identify how a health center can begin utilizing it
• Include specific examples of how it has been successfully used
• Clarify health centers’ understanding and expectations of predictive analytics