Clients Last Name Goes Here 1

Study the Benefits of Cognos BI Software in Medical Equipment Industry

September 14, 2012

2 Abstract The given research paper represents the self-sufficient research containing a deep analysis of specific but urgent issue of the benefits of Cognos BI software in medical equipment industry. Moreover, the paper is written according to a definite structure; it is divided into two parts: Introduction and Literature Review. It also should be noted that it covers a profound data analysis and the key points of the research are represented in the structural presentation of the found information. The paper is well organized, due to which the theme is fully covered. The main goal of the given research paper is to define what is Cognos BI software and how it is used in the medical equipment industry. The paper consists of 13 pages; 15 peer-reviewed sources were used while writing the given research paper.

3 Introduction The list of new perspective technologies contains some of the most outstanding current events, achievements and innovations in various areas of modern technology. New technologies are the technical innovations which represent progressive changes in the frameworks of the area of a competitive advantage. There are different opinions of expediency, importance, status and economic viability of various new technologies. There are constant political discussions concerning many new technologies and their consequences for a society. Information technologies (IT), or information and communication technologies (ICT), are the technologies applied to the information processing. In particular, they use computers and software to transform, store, protect, inform, transfer and extract in any place and at any time. Taking into account this definition, IT management covers the management of all computer and communication resources of the enterprise. Its primary goal consists in the creation and maintenance of the applications and infrastructures on which they are executed in efficient conditions. Similar management can be divided into three levels: operational, tactical, and strategic. The strategic level includes the conformity establishment between the information functions of a system and its content; it means that it is reduced to the tasks attributions in the field of the information policy, to the definition of the maintenance of information functions and IT Support. The operational and tactical levels of IT management include a set of working capacity and reliability of operation of information systems applications on the continuation of all life cycles of the system. Statement of the Problem Over the years, the government of United States has struggled to provide its citizens with high quality heath care services by spending huge sums of money on health care department, construction of healthcare facilities, training of healthcare professionals among

4 other initiatives. However, due to the increased human population, the desire to be close to family members, friends, cutting medical costs, the most American hospitals and clinics have turned to apply modern software which eases the work of the medical personnel. The software called Cognos BI is connected to the system of electronic medical records. An important role in the improvement of the quality of the public medical care is played by the interoperability of the systems of federal agencies and a private sector. The used technologies provide accuracy, efficiency and safety. Besides, they allow avoiding redundancy and additional checks. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to explain the benefits of the use of the Cognos BI software in medical equipment industry. The researchers main goal is to clarify what Cognos BI software is; to show the characteristics associated with the concept, advantages and disadvantages, challenges facing the use of this software, and the general goals of the software for the medical equipment industry. Scope of the Study The scope of this study is to explain the benefits of Cognos BI software in medical equipment industry. In addition, issues related to the advantages and disadvantages of the concept are also included into the research. Aims and Objectives of the Study Aim: The aim of the research is to study the benefits of Cognos BI Software in medical equipment industry; Objectives: 1. To find out what Cognos BI software is as well as what its characteristics are. 2. To evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the given software.

5 3. To find out the challenges of the application of Cognos BI facing various medical equipment producers in their quest to provide patients with the best health care services. 4. To find out the benefits of the application of Cognos BI in medical equipment industry; 5. To single out the future prospects of the application of Cognos BI software in medical equipment industry. Research Questions and Hypotheses 1. What is Cognos BI software and its characteristics? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the given software? 3. What are the challenges facing various medical equipment producers in their quest to provide patients with the best health care services? 4. What are the benefits of the application of Cognos BI in medical equipment industry 5. What are the future prospects of the application of Cognos BI software in medical equipment industry? Limitation of the Study The research had a global scope aimed at the revealing of the advantages, disadvantages and attitudes towards the application of Cognos BI software in the medical equipment industry. 1. Non-cooperative respondents: some of the target respondents are expected to be suspicious and dare not to corporate in availing required information. Some questionnaires may not be returned and others not responded to. 2. Financial constraints: the research is an extensive one and involves the use of funds in huge amounts.

6 3. Hostility: some information sources especially those patients suffering from mental illnesses may be unwilling and unreceptive, hence may not offer the information I need. 4. Limitation in time is another factor; the time given for the research may not be sufficient. Methodology Research Methods The research is a mixed study. It was conducted on the basis of the primary and secondary research sources. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodology was used while conducting this research. It provided me with an opportunity to come up with suitable information which is relevant and factual. It is a research approach in which various methods to collect relevant data are integrated for the purposes of the research. Population and Sampling The populations of interest that provided the necessary information are the representatives of the medical equipment industry. These individuals can give relevant information regarding their experience in the application of Cognos BI in the medical equipment industry. Sampling strategies for obtaining the target sample include: random sampling, careful biased sampling and stratified sampling strategies. The use of random sampling ensured that a group of the entire targeted population is selected to represent it in the given research. A stratified sampling strategy is the one which subdivides the population to the identifiable sectors such as the medical equipment industry. Data Collection Methods The research on the assessment and determination of the benefits of the use of Cognos BI software required all the goals of the research paper to be obtained through the perusal of

7 primary, as well as secondary research sources, such as the use of questionnaires, interviews and observations. Primary Sources The primary sources of data collection were applicability: interviews, observations and questionnaires. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents - the representatives of the medical equipment industry. Questionnaires have a lot of advantages among the other primary research methods. They cover a lot of people at the same time and show relatively true information. Moreover, they are easy to process and to analyze. The respondents do not worry about their answers, as they are not influenced by any outer force. Another primary research method which was used during the research of the theme of the assessment of the benefits of Cognos BI software was the method of observations. It presented the most accurate information as it directly answers the research aims and objectives. Except the above-mentioned two tools, interviews were also used. Both the interviewer and the interviewee could clarify the issues of the research. The obtained information was relevant and authentic. It is a very flexible data collection tool, and interviews allowed me to find much information about the advantages and disadvantages of the application of Cognos BI software in the medical equipment industry. Secondary Sources The information found in the web, in on-line databases was used while writing the given research paper about the benefits of Cognos BI in the medical equipment industry. External data sources included information from the sources of the famous medical equipment giants and latest IT researches. Data Analysis and Presentation

8 Non-parametric statistics was used while analyzing the collected data. The collected data was filtered, modeled, and transformed in order to extract the necessary information for the research of the benefits of Cognos BI in the medical equipment industry.

9 Literature Review The quality of the accepted decisions is a crucial aspect of any business. Thus, the special importance is got by such factors as accuracy of decisions and timeliness of their acceptance. The software for the business analysis allows transforming the data into reliable information in convenient, addressing to which, management and employees can imagine more precisely a situation and accept optimum business solutions. In the conditions of the rigid competition in the world medical equipment market for the successful development of business the heads of the companies should know the answers to the following questions accurately: Is the companys activity effective? Which clients are the most perspective? Does the company achieve the put goals? One of the conditions of development of the company in modern conditions of the development of the Asian business is an ability to react quickly and adequately to the environment changes. It assumes a powerful system of collection and analysis of data in any enterprise, working without failures and easily adapting for arising inquiries. Practically any company at any degree of its development comes up against a situation when the inquiries of business surpass the possibilities of the existing IT infrastructure. The number of data, their sources, a short time of delivery of the reporting in the formats necessary for top managers create an information chaos in the company when seemingly necessary information exists, but an access to it and its processing are complicated. All IT specialists, especially working in the frameworks of the health care industry, face the problems, caused by the variety of non-connected, various databases; the specialized programs demand unification and transformation of a crude data into ready-to-use information for final business users. In addition, there is an urgent problem of timely informing of users about the events and changes in the sources of data for operative response to them.

10 Often the companies see the way out in the specialized software for the salvation of the current tasks. However, with business development the functional ceases to satisfy the requirements of the company - both according to the quantitative (a lack of capacities), and qualitative characteristics (incompleteness of a functional). As a result, the IT infrastructure of the enterprise appears to be a branched-out, unstructured heap of the information systems. It is obvious that it is not the most effective way of the use of IT resources of the enterprise. Effective management of any company assumes ability to ask the correct questions and to find reasonable answers to them. The Business Intelligence (BI) technology allows achieving such an effect. The BI tools allow simplifying the decision-making process and obtaining the full reporting by all staff of the enterprise. Cognos is a global leader in the field. Its software and services give customers access to quality inter-related metrics and information in real time to support decisions across all the functions and divisions of their organization (Cognos: 2008). The Cognos Company is one of the first developers of the systems of analysis and reporting, existing since 1969. BI systems were initially developed as a uniform platform for the analysis and reporting, building on three principles: flexibility, simplicity, and efficiency. The results speak for themselves: at present the products of Cognos use all 10 largest world investment banks, 2 out of 3 largest international payment systems, 6 out of 10 largest insurance groups of the world. Moreover, the companies in the sphere of medical equipment also actively use Cognos software. Cognos is a Canadian company, the developer of the software solutions in the category Business Intelligence for the large organizations. It is based in 1969 under the name Quasar, it has started to be called Cognos since 1982. The shares of the company

11 bargained at the NASDAQ exchange with COGN ticker. On January 31, 2008 the company was absorbed by the IBM Corporation. According to the repost of the BlueNet Technologies (2012), the solution of IBM Cognos is a complex of the integrated software products for the management of efficiency of activity of the enterprise and management accounting (Corporate Performance Management, CPM). IBM Cognos allows answering three key questions of business: What is going on? What is the cause of it? What should be done? Using the solution of IBM Cognos, the company can increase the efficiency of business up to a qualitatively new level. The benefits of IBM Cognos: The solutions of Cognos are checked by time and successfully work since 1969 (more than 23 000 clients in 135 countries of the world), and are estimated by the leading market analysts, such as Forrester and Gartner; The products of IBM Cognos do not demand programming, they are easy for using, introducing and supporting; IBM Cognos is the uniform specialized decision from one supplier for all management problems for the efficiency of the companys activity (Business Intelligence (BI), budgeting, financial planning and management accounting); IBM Cognos is easily integrated with the already existing information systems, it is well scaled, and supports all necessary sources of data. The project of introduction of the base functionality of IBM Cognos takes from 3 to 6 months depending on the borders and project tasks. The flexible and complex functionality of the system, the debugged methodology of introduction, adaptability to manufacture - all this allows carrying out the projects of introduction of IBM Cognos at the minimum investments and of high quality. After several trainings the experts of the Customer can develop the system independently, without resorting to the help of external advisers.

12 The Cognos business intelligence software Market place and administrators has long been generating some fascinating moves driven from the inexpensive scenario and person asks for much more integrated options for their company. Small and Medium Software Companies' acquisitions by software program big whales, government and authorities' compliance rising demands and aggressive marketplace competition is moving Cognos business intelligence software for new ways to seize non-traditional markets. Business Intelligence plays a essential part in creating a successful Cognos business intelligence software technique within an organization, whereby each and each worker work with each other to make and preserve the relationship that the organization has with every and each and every specific consumer. Cognos business intelligence software could be noticed as an instrument to permit the Cognos business intelligence software strategy inside an organization. Cognos business intelligence software has a few specifications though before you can begin bettering it (Emanio: 2012). Cognos 8.2 BI was released in February, 2007. It is necessary to note at once that the Cognos version 8.2 is not something essentially new in Cognos product line, and the following step to the evolution of the BI systems, assuming the improvement of already checked technology taking into account occurring changes and inquiries of businesses/clients. The IBM Cognos Business Intelligence system allows optimizing the marketing policy of the company and increasing the profit at the expense of the development of effective price policy. In the field of logistics the reporting system, made by means of Business Intelligence helps to improve the work with suppliers, to lower the expenses due to the effective management in the warehouse areas. The use of IBM Cognos BI allows

13 increasing a turn and the companys profit for the account providing a continuity of sales and management of the goods calculation. First of all, Cognos BI is a uniform platform for the analysis and the reporting which provides full functionality of BI tools. Besides, it is the unique decision with the simplified interface, not demanding the installation of additional software which can be used by all users, developers and managers. Better reporting and BI provide the tools to help meet many of the challenges of todays health systems. The next step is performance management, a strategic business direction. With a performance management approach, organizations are gaining a perspective of their entire business like they have never seen before. Vast amounts of disparate health and patient data are transformed into information assets. Healthcare professionals can effectively collaborate and make informed decisions. They can analyze resources, operations, and finances, measure against benchmarks, and plan for upcoming business cycles. They can be accountable to the public and regulatory agencies, and share information with patients and their families in keeping with patient-centered care. Cognos works with leading healthcare institutions worldwide and has proven its ability to help them meet these vital goals (Cognos: 2009). In order to create a uniform superstructure and to bring all sources of data together, Cognos provides the main mechanism - Framework Manager, allowing making it with the simple and evident means. By means of the Framework Manager the system manager sets connections, calculations, adjusts the safety parameters for the source data. In the course of the formation of the logic communications the Framework Manager can distinguish and use the information

14 on the communications between the tables, set in the course of database design. There can be the quantity of the informational sources - it is possible to provide, for example, the connection of data from the Microsoft SQL, Oracle and Excel databases within one metamodel. Further such communication will be automatically created and supported. Each employee of the medical organization can receive the access to the information independently. The use of BI solutions of IBM Cognos opens a number of new possibilities, namely: Optimal use of the data containing the resources both of the other systems and sources of information valuable to business in the control systems of the company; Provision of the uniform version of the truth for the elimination of disagreements and internal disagreements, minimization of the risks and negative consequences of the use of the appropriate data; Decrease of the IT expenditures for the creation of BI content by the end users, instead of IT specialists; Increase of transparency of the companys activity, which will allow analyzing the tendencies, anticipating the potential problems and finding the new possibilities for the development; Increase of efficiency of the use of resources due to the improvement of the system of priorities and the distributions of assets; Simple and fast scaling of BI infrastructure under the change of the requirements of business owning to flexible and adaptive service - oriented architecture (SOA). At the following stage a manager creates a business-focused metamodel connected with the certain direction of the work of the medical equipment enterprise. The indicators in this model are designated and grouped in sets according to their logic value, regardless of their physical name and arrangement in the sources of data. The communications necessary

15 for the group of indicators are formed by the system automatically on the basis of information defined at the first stage. Such a metamodel described in the terms and names, applied in the definite organization, are provided to users. Thus, the end users will not need to reflect on that - they will see the ready set of the metadata which has been already prepared for the salvation of their own tasks. The users can use the Cognos Analysis Studio module for an operative OLAP analysis. The data in it can be presented in the form of multidimensional cubes which open all the possibilities of the OLAP technology. In order to receive the fast report on demand, the users have Cognos Query Studio module in which it is possible to analyze the demanded information, to provide it in a graphic view; thus, the skills of the programmer or a PC operator are not required. The Cognos Report Studio module is intended for the creation of difficult multipage reports with non-standard formatting, calculations and filters. The reports remain on the working server and are started by the users on demand. Cognos BI Software is widely applied in the medical equipment industry. When the medical establishment puts the aim to create the balanced system of the indicators, interconnected KPI or to see how they depend on each other, they should use the Cognos Metrics Studio module. In the new Cognos 8.2 BI version there are the significant improvements which occurred in the user environment of the system. The unique Cognos Event Studio module allows publishing the news on Cognos Connections portal, to send notifying SMS and electronic mails to the responsible managers, to form the cascades of reports. Thus, the user can receive not only the notice, but also the attached report containing the traced indicators. Thus, there is the essential step to the increase of the systems usability.

16 Integrating Cognos business intelligence (BI) and IBM software, hardware, and middleware creates the right framework to monitor all aspects of the health system. With Cognos and IBM healthcare providers can optimize resource use, track and analyze clinical information, improve operational efficiencies, and comply with government regulations, while protecting the confidentiality and security of patient data. With Cognos 8 BI healthcare providers can quickly and easily: consolidate data from disparate sources; coordinate information with and across the organization; improve coordination of policy, resources, and information; conduct effective financial and compliance reporting; monitor operation performance with reports, scorecards, dashboards, and more; manage clinical effectiveness; share healthcare and treatment data through intranets, portals, extranets, and public Web sites (Cognos: 2006). As a result the use of IBM Cognos BI of the company working in the sphere of medical equipment can achieve the increase in a turn up to 7-10 % at a simultaneous decrease in costs by 3-5 %. IBM Cognos BI is characterized by the following possibilities: Deep comparative analysis. With a view of the simplification of the research process and information extraction in IBM Cognos BI system there is the implementation of the complex analysis by users even using a large volume of data. The drag-and-drop method allows the user to choose the objects necessary to him from the list and to drag them on a personal web page by a mouse. Multidimensional reports and dynamic information panels. Having a great deal of opportunities for the creation of reports, Cognos BI can be used both for the

17 creation of corporate and production reports, corporate reports in real time, and also non-programmable inquiries. Owning to it, the users of the report or the information panel can pass to the necessary level of information which is necessary for decision-making by one click; Scorecarding function (the balanced system of indicators). Except the monitoring of a current state of business, projects and actions of IBM, Cognos BI provides the unified strategy of development, departments of the enterprise and current indicators through the system of indicators, and also the analysis of the problem situations, the processes influencing solution and interactions of various indicators. Powerful possibilities of events management and integration of the processes. In real time (by means of e-mail or in news) the users can get access to the necessary information by key indicators and events to operate them effectively. A close integration with IBM Cognos Planning, IBM Cognos TM1 and IBM Cognos Controller allows creating easily production reports, using information panels and indicators, carrying out the analysis and operating the events. All possibilities in a uniform product. The architecture based on the web technology provides an easy integration and installation of a product of IBM Cognos BI into the environment of the enterprise. IBM Cognos BI is the unique decision providing a uniform level of metadata and the mechanism of processing of inquiries due to which the user has a possibility to use the uniform environment for work with all data and to receive consistent information.

18 Software such as Cognos allows the medical practice to mine even more specific patient data as SETMA searches to identify causes for readmissions. That data can include age, ethnicity, gender and types of treatments received while allowing side-by-side comparisons to look for readmission patterns. The electronic medical records combined with Cognos BI software, which allows SETMA to access the data and provides the reporting and analytics against that data, has enabled his practice to take patient care to the next level, Holly said. Rather than producing what he refers to as a silhouette, BI has allowed SETMA to produce more exact impressions of its patients (Laskowski: 2011). The solutions of IBM Cognos for the organizations of health care allow them to increase the quality of the rendered medical services, remaining thus within the established budget. In addition, these organizations receive the effective analytics on the patients on the basis of these various financial and clinical systems.

19 References BlueNet Technologies. (2012). Success Stories. Mercury Medical a Healthcare Manufacturer Improves Reporting and Analysis with IBM Cognos Express. Available at: http://www.bluenettech.com/pdf/BlueNetSolutionsBooklet.pdf Browne, D., Frankus, R., Hoffman, B. (2011). Best Practices and Advantages of IBM Power Systems for Running IBM Cognos Business Intelligence. IBM Business Analytics. Available at: http://www-

03.ibm.com/systems/data/flash/be/pdf/Best_Practices_for_Cognos_on_POWER7__P OW03076-USEN-00_.pdf Caldelli, A., and M.L. Parmigiani. (December 2004). Management Information System: A Tool for Corporate Sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics 55, no.2: 159171. Cognos. (2008). Performance Management in Healthcare. Available at: http://www935.ibm.com/services/au/gbs/bus/html/healthcare/pdf/ibm_cognos_white_paper_perfo rmance_management_in_healthcare.pdf Cognos. (2006). Healthcare Performance Management from Cognos and IBM. Available at: http://content.ll-

0.com/colman/fs_healthcare_performance_management_from_cognos_and_ibm.pdf?i =032008094715 Cognos Software. (2009). Picturing Performance: IBM Cognos Dashboards and Scorecards. Available at:

http://www.mycci.com/wp_picturing_performance_dashboards_and_scorecards.pdf Emanio. (2012). Cognos Business Intelligence Software 2010 Trends. Available at: http://www.emanio.com/business-intelligence/Cognos-Business-IntelligenceSoftware.htm IBM. (2012). Healthy Information Management. IBM Corporation

20 InfoCom. (2012). Business Intelligence Software. Available at:

http://topics.info.com/Business-Intelligence-Software_1432 Lail, P.W. (2005). Improving ITs Support of Business Strategy. Pulp & Paper 79, no.1: 23. Laskowski, N. (2011). Cognos BI Software at Crossroads of Technology, Hospital Readmissions. Available at:

http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/news/2240034729/Cognos-BI-softwareat-crossroads-of-technology-hospital-readmissions McDonagh, Joe, and David Coghlan. Information Technology and the Lure of Integrated Change: a Neglected Role for Organization Development? Public Administration Quarterly 30.1 (2006): 22+. Moga, Jeffrey A. (2012). Management Information Systems. Reference for Buisiness. Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd edition. Retrieved from:

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Log-Mar/ManagementInformation-Systems.html Sallam, R., Richardson, J., Hagerty, J., Hostmann, B. (2011). Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms. Available at:

http://www.board.com/download/press/EN/Gartner_BI_MagicQuadrant_2011.pdf Volitich, D., Ruppet, G. (2012). IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10: The Official Guide. The McGraw-Hill Companies.