As technology continues to evolve, companies stand to gain even deeper insights into everything from the inner workings of their businesses to the behavior of their customers to the trends emerging in their industries — and they’re using this information to do some pretty exciting work.
We talked to three local analytics pros to learn more about how their teams are leveraging data to drive their products forward and the impact those data-driven projects are having on their businesses and customers.
Forget clipping coupons. Ibotta lets consumers earn cash back on everyday products — from groceries to office supplies to electronics — directly through its mobile shopping app. Manager of Machine Learning Charley Frazier said data and machine learning have played a critical role in improving the user experience and increasing revenue for the business.
Tell us about a project you’re working on right now that you’re really excited about. How is your team leveraging data to drive this initiative forward?
At Ibotta, the data and machine learning teams are investing heavily in bringing personalized experiences to millions of Ibotta users. This includes leveraging billions of data points and dozens of algorithms to improve our search relevancy, personalized recommendations and pricing optimizations. Most recently, we are focused on transforming our data and machine learning platforms to deliver real-time predictions across the entire user experience, something we believe will unlock tremendous value for both Ibotta and our users!
With hundreds of retailers and thousands of offers, helping users find the most relevant content is the most critical part of the user experience.”
What impact will this project have on your business or your customers?
Here at Ibotta, our data and machine learning teams create positive feedback loops for both our users and our business. With hundreds of retailers and thousands of offers, helping users find the most relevant content is the most critical part of the user experience. Personalizing the majority of the content within our application allows us to significantly increase user engagement which translates into tens of millions of dollars in incremental revenue for Ibotta.
Alto’s tech-driven, patient-centric online pharmacy is transforming the way patients manage and fill their prescriptions, making it easy to chat with in-house experts and get prescriptions filled — and even delivered — in the same day. Operations Analyst Nathan Daines explained how his team is leveraging robust data sets to solve a long-time pain point in the pharmacy industry.
Tell us about a project you’re working on right now that you’re really excited about. How is your team leveraging data to drive this initiative forward?
A project I’ve been involved with recently has been focused on optimizing our workflow. This project is exciting because as we become more efficient, we will be able to help more people conveniently get the medicine that they need. In the pharmacy world, there are several interdependent tasks that can run concurrently, which means if two tasks are done simultaneously it could either result in a much faster overall completion time or redo work for one of the two tasks. The aim of this project is to reduce redo work while decreasing the total time to process a prescription.
To accomplish this, we’ve been leveraging several years worth of data to measure which sequence of task completion results in both the quickest and most resource efficient flow. As this project matures, we envision using machine learning to assign different types of prescriptions to different task sequences.
By improving our efficiency and speed, we are working towards our mission which is ‘to fulfill medicine’s true purpose — to improve quality of life for everyone who needs it.’”
What impact will this project have on your business or your customers?
By improving our efficiency and speed, we are working towards our mission which is “to fulfill medicine’s true purpose — to improve quality of life for everyone who needs it.” Faster prescription processing allows us to empower patients sooner with information regarding insurance and pricing options. Additionally, faster prescription processing enables patients to take control of the delivery scheduling process via the Alto app.
DispatchHealth brings healthcare services directly to patients’ homes, offices or senior care facilities, giving them access to on-site, on-demand urgent care from board-certified medical teams. VP of Business Intelligence and Analytics Dan Edstrom shared how data is driving the business forward and improving the care patients receive.
Tell us about a project you’re working on right now that you’re really excited about. How is your team leveraging data to drive this initiative forward?
To provide a little background, DispatchHealth delivers high-quality, advanced medical care to the home. In turn, this helps reduce unnecessary emergency room visits and hospitalizations — especially for older adults with complex health problems.
To further show this benefit and how DispatchHealth improves clinical outcomes, we are actively working on a diversion model that uses a wide variety of our available data to determine whether or not someone would have required ambulance transportation or would have resulted in an emergency room visit, a hospital observation or a hospital admittance. We are using data related to diagnosis, medical history, the types of procedures we performed on-scene, and the status of the patient before we arrived and after our care was complete. Collecting and analyzing this valuable data uniquely positions the company for success in an evolving market.
Collecting and analyzing this valuable data uniquely positions the company for success in an evolving market.”
What impact will this project have on your business or your customers?
As DispatchHealth expands its treatment capabilities for patients with high medical needs, this diversion model demonstrates a clear and specific impact on our patients’ quality of care. In addition, it demonstrates the ways in which DispatchHealth can improve health outcomes while decreasing burdensome costs for the overall healthcare system.
