Calm down… calm down!

There have been many reactions to data…

and articles often (i.e.  BigData in HR: Why it’s Here and What it Means, Big Data in HR: The Opportunity, How BigData Tools Helps HR Understand You - Forbes, on and on) mention how data can help a business with understanding the customers they serve and the engagement of their employees. They’re have also been articles mentioning the need for HR professionals to pay attention, learn and use how data can be used to benefit them.

Don’t get it twisted

but don’t confuse the availability of that data versus the use of that data. It the data, no matter how big, is not used in context with what the business or its employees are facing then it can be confused as a virus when it really is just a symptom of the opportunity/problem you are trying to address. Too many people use data they collect in the wrong way. They use it to reinforce their assumptions rather than take a look at the picture data presents to make decisions for the short term and the long-term.

Use data, don’t abuse it

The key in analyzing data is making the content match the context. Just having people answer questions and then coming up with spreadsheets and graphs to prove your own point should not be a goal, not to mention it can illegal and unethical (dependent on who is reporting and how the data is presented - or just how much of a spotlight you have on you!)

Here are a few charts that will put our cost, spending and compensation for healthcare into perspective.

Enjoy!

National Healthcare Expenditure (NHE)

Using a conservative annual growth rate of 4% (from Deloitte’s baseline year of 2010), Deloitte suggests the following as our real NHE.

Out of Pocket Healthcare Cost

The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released this chart to highlight the growth of our largest single component of cost - Average Annual Premiums. This shows our corresponding increase in out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.

Assembled by Carnegie Mellon University professor Paul Fischbeck – and reported by Mark Roth of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (December, 2009) – and highlights our Per Capita Healthcare Costs by Age as compared to four other countries (Germany, the U.K., Sweden and Spain).

Physician Compensation

Here is Medscape’s Physician Compensation Report: 2012 Results.

Innovation in tight times is always hard. It can be especially difficult in the tough economic times we face now. To be the innovative person now is like being Noah facing the task of building an ark in the middle of a desert. You can compare it to the Wright brothers taking their first flight, and the preparations they took in the 1800’s to their first flight of 1903. You could even make the argument that even the person who invented the idea of the ‘pet rock’ was innovative, while a huge stretch. What are you mad! Innovation takes not only time and dollars, but also a grain of insanity and a number of pennies to throw into a wishing well along with your prayers. All in the hopes the idea you created with will be successful.

This brings me to the wheel. The wheel is probably the most important mechanical invention of all time. Nearly every machine built since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution involves this single, basic principle embodied in one of mankind’s truly significant inventions. It is hard to imagine any mechanized system that would be possible without the wheel or the idea of a symmetrical component moving in a circular motion on an axis. Various references all over the internet state that from ancient drawings, the earliest known use of this invention was a potter’s wheel that was used in Mesopotamia (part of modern day Iraq) as early as 3500 BC. You can find a wheel like component in every part of your life. It has been reworked, downsized, enlarged, given spokes and saw like grips. Yet everyone says “don’t reinvent the wheel.”

People have their reasons for saying this because it may be easier to go with the status quo or do what has been supposedly proven and repeated time and time again. Yet, I say, when there is an opportunity to change things, make them better and become innovative in what you do or how you think, by all means – reinvent the wheel. You can use the basis of many proven ideas and build upon them to create your own success.

In time like these, when everything around you seems like a desert, you may have to build an ark just to change things up a bit!