Newtack

The data foundation

What a data foundation is and what it gives you.

A data foundation is one store that holds a copy of the data from the systems your organization already runs. In behavioral health, those systems are grouped as EHR encounters and notes, EHR enrollments and census, care planning, staffing and payroll, and billing and claims. With the records in one place, your team can understand what they show and answer questions that cross from one system to another. Every view, report, and application that reads from the store uses the same numbers. Each number follows a metric definition agreed with the staff who enter the data. Newtack builds the store and runs it for you.

01

What you get

What a data foundation lets you do.

  1. Every view shows the same numbers.

    Views such as the Leadership overview, Care delivery, Trends and pacing, Revenue by period, and Documentation all read from the same store. When the CEO, the finance team, and a program director look up active clients for the same program and month, they see the same figure.

  2. Ask in plain language.

    You can ask a question in ordinary words, such as "How many visits did each program complete last month?" The answer comes from the same completed visits, counted by the same rule, as the figure in the views.

  3. Answer questions that need more than one system.

    Planned care hours come from care planning, and delivered care hours come from the EHR. With both in one store, the Care delivery view sets them side by side by location and clinician. A program that is short of staff shows up before visits are missed.

02

Running it

How a data foundation runs day to day.

  • Updates run on a schedule that Newtack monitors.

    Each source is copied into the store on its own schedule, such as nightly for EHR and care planning data and weekly for staffing and payroll. Billing and claims data arrives after the clearinghouse processes it, so each claims figure states which service dates it covers. Every run is logged, and a failed or late run notifies Newtack's team.

  • Each number follows one metric definition.

    Each metric definition is agreed with the staff who enter the data and written down once. For example, a resubmitted claim counts once, and open stays are left out of average length of stay. Some rules are your staff's decision, such as whether a service counts on the date it was delivered, the date its note was signed, or the date it was billed. When a rule is wrong, it is corrected in that one place and every view recalculates.

  • Inconsistent data entry shows up by location, program, and clinician.

    Some differences between programs come from how staff enter the data, such as one program signing notes within 48 hours of the visit and another signing them days later. Correcting a metric definition does not change that. You can break the figures down by location, program, and clinician to see where the inconsistency is and how large it is. Then you know what has to change in the field, and you can see when it has changed.

  • Your EHR stays in place.

    The store copies records out of the systems you already run. Your staff keep entering notes in the EHR the way they do now.

03

The next view

Each new view reuses metric definitions your staff already agreed on.

You start with one view, such as Revenue by period before a rate negotiation. Its metric definitions are agreed with your staff and written down.

The next view uses the rules that already exist and adds only the new ones it needs. A Care delivery view, for example, keeps the rule for which date a service counts on and adds a rule for how planned care hours are counted. New sources, such as payer contracts and grants or outcomes instruments, go into the same store.

04

Next step

Talk with us and see the demo.

Write to [email protected] to set up a conversation. We will share a screen and walk you through the demo. It works the way the product does and runs on sample data.