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Leveling the Playing Field

between Business and IT Ann Dailey

Manager

Kaiser Permanente

@KPNewscenter Business Leadership track

March 6, 2013

1:15 – 2:00 pm

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A not-for-profit health plan serving 9 million members in 9 states and the District of

Columbia whose mission is:

• To provide high quality, affordable health care services and

• To improve the health of our members and the communities we serve

Kaiser Permanente Recognized as a leading health care provider

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1. Data pulls were taking all day to run; frequently the job would then crash; we had no

way of diagnosing why the job crashed – the time constraint

2. We could not access large files – the size constraint

3. Errors occurred when data were manually entered – the accuracy constraint

4. Attempts to do fuzzy matching with SQL were ineffective – the text constraint

Before Alteryx

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After Alteryx, we benefited from increased speed – From 4 hrs to 6 minutes!

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After Alteryx, we could access larger files – From 2 MM to 8+ MM!

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After Alteryx, increased accuracy

Previously had to Key in Date:

• Manual typing can lead to wrong date

format

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Traditional sources for listening to our members:

1. Primary market research where we interview members

2. Quantitative categorization of membership types from operational systems

3. Complaints

Business Need: How can we better understand our members?

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What Clifford Geertz called “thick description” refers to specifying many details and

meanings such as we obtain from primary research and complaints

To “thin description” where we only have facts without the commentary such as we

obtain from membership categories in operational systems

Traditional sources for member information:

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Note thick description with small sample size on left and thin description with large

sample size on right

How can we acquire thick

descriptions of more members?

Thick Description

(small sample size)

Thin Description

(large sample size)

Gap

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The Alteryx textual analysis enabled us to get thick descriptions on

many members so we could distinguish among:

1. Members who renewed late due to benefit changes

2. Members who renewed late due to financial constraints

3. Members who renewed late due to life circumstances

4. Members who renewed late due to unknowns

Alteryx’ fuzzy matching bridges the gap

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The Mental Health Parity assessment integrates

12 data files; largest file is 3,585,422 records.

• Before Alteryx, one section of report ran for 2 days

• After Alteryx, report ran in under 37 minutes

Use Alteryx to assess the extent to

which we comply with Regulations

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Before Alteryx:

• We were unable to access the level of data required with existing tools.

Using Alteryx:

• We were able to extract the data, analyze and assess the impact related to the issues.

Regulatory issues tend to require

deep dives into the benefit data

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• Let the pendulum represent the

ability to leverage operational

data for business intelligence

• Alteryx moves this pendulum

closer to the business data artisan

Alteryx’ effect on Work Climate

IT

Developer Business

Data Artisan

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• “I have been going back and forth with the client today who needed this report

(Short Term Report) to track the missed Pre-Notes. Since understanding their need

is really vital, the ability to extract the data is very critical to a project or request

especially if we are still in the working phase of developing the report itself. With

Alteryx, we have a fast turnaround time that gets our clients involved in the QA

process of the report itself, making this the best tool for data extraction/pull.”

• “Our team delivered this Short Term Report 10 business days in advance!”

Business Analyst

August 10, 2012

User Testimonial – experience with

Alteryx to extract data for Client

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1. Increased the efficiency of integrating data from legacy operational systems and new

installations of workflow systems

2. Time and energy saved from manual data processing now spent on analytics

3. Resulting in more substantive analysis and in the enablement of business data artisans

How has Alteryx changed our work climate?

Thank You!

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Ann Dailey

Manager

Kaiser Permanente

@KPNewscenter