There is an old saying that money makes the world go 'round. While that may be true, you first have to figure out how to get the money. For any business with strategic goals to achieve, it starts with successfully working with the data that runs your business.

Successful businesses in any industry rely on solid, reliable data to make the heart of the business pump. Data drives the strategic initiatives of an organization and is crucial to increased profit margins and satisfied customers. This is becoming especially true in today's long-term care climate.

Data Integrity

The most important attribute of data is its integrity. There is nothing worse than a lack of confidence in the data you are working with. A lack of confidence results in frustration and wasted time spent locating accurate data and analyzing why the data is not legitimate.

In the long-term care climate, maintaining data integrity equates to effective and complete documentation, comprehensive reporting, and thorough outputs that run your business efficiently and improve your reimbursements. You must ensure that appropriate security measures are in place to prevent data corruption from unauthorized sources, and implement data back-up processes to ensure reliability.

Data integrity processes provide consistent data that is useful to your staff. Empowering employees with effective data tools allows them to do their jobs well, as long as checks and balances are in place to maintain data integrity standards.

Accessing Your Data

While data integrity is of utmost importance to run your business, you must also be able to access your data at all times. In the past, long-term care providers had to manage their own data. Organizations would need several technical staff members to manage servers, deploy updates and ensure that the system and its accompanying data were available and stable.

Today, several industries are moving away from the self-hosted data model and relying on their software providers to host the software data for them. This model is often referred to as SaaS or Software as a Service. To be successful with this model, you need a reliable software provider who will ensure 24-hour access to your data and will also have experienced technical staff to monitor and prevent any unplanned disruptions to accessing your data. Even when you are away on business, the SaaS model allows you to access your data anytime, anywhere.

Working with Data

Now that you can access your data, you need the tools and workflows in place to use it to reach your business goals. This includes entering data in one part of the product and ensuring that it flows to other parts so no dual entry is required. You must have the ability to successfully report on the data. Comprehensive reporting capability and the ability to report on every data type possible provides key indicators as to how your business is performing. It will show whether everything is going as well as planned or if there are adjustments that need to be made.

Report types can vary, but most businesses will work with canned reports or customized reports. The canned reports work very well for businesses. They offer multiple report types and data outputs and are effective for specific business processes. But the selection of canned reports available may not provide everything you are looking for, which is why you need the capability to create customized reports as well. Customized reports will allow you to generate customized, personalized reports that will help meet your business objectives, from the front-line to the executive level.

Exporting Data

Most businesses don't work in one system for all of their business functions. A variety of different systems may be necessary to achieve organizational objectives. LTC providers want the capability to exchange data between systems and other care settings.

They want to achieve interoperability. This exchange of data helps a business run more efficiently, saves precious staff time, and gets a business closer to organizational goals. Software providers must be able to "talk" to each other to ensure their mutual customer's data management goals are being met, which ultimately results in succeeding with their business objectives.

The integrity of your data, having your data accessible, the ability to work with your data, and having interoperability between systems are just a few of the fundamental needs for data management. Data is the key that funnels decision-making, runs your business efficiently and drives mission-critical processes. If you nurture and maintain your data, your business has a much better chance at success.

Louis Lenzmeier is director of marketing, MDI Achieve, Minneapolis. DISCLOSURE: MDI Achieve provides software solutions to the eldercare industry.