Business Intelligence (BI) refers to tools which can be implemented into health systems to organize and analyze data across multiple databases and a diverse set of systems. BI seeks to take ‘big data’, unstructured data into easy-to-read and interpret information conveyed through spreadsheets, reporting and query software, data visualization, data mining tools, and online analytical processing. This allows organizations to make informed decisions regarding patient’s healthcare by using technology to effectively gather, store, and analyze health data to improve health outcomes. Telemedicine is a BI tool which gained popularity during and after the Covid-19 pandemic due to its ability to reach individuals who are not able to seek care in person due to health or geographic limitations. BI tools create more efficiency in processes by reducing the number of human hours in completing certain administrative tasks. The implementation of BI tools creates a competitive advantage by evaluating market trends, risk management, patient preferences, inefficiencies halting optimal and quality care, financial trends and tracking, and operational performance through real-time analytics. The potential drawbacks for the implementation of BI in health systems are the cost and time associated with the integration, but doing so will lead to a competent stance in the advancement of healthcare technologies. I believe the adoption of BI in health systems is crucial to improving the quality of care by reducing the number or errors, redundancies, and by reducing wastes/inefficiencies. Recognizing the key benefits, the cost-to-benefit, and the process to implement interoperable systems is important because it is the future of healthcare. In dentistry the use of dental software has made it possible to easily shared digitized information in the patient’s chart to streamline care with alternate providers, whether dental or general health related.
