Exploring the Role of Cleveland Clinic’s First Chief Analytics Officer

November 15, 2023 - As data analytics becomes more valuable and accessible, health systems are creating leadership roles to reflect this shift. Chief data officer and chief analytics officer roles are becoming more common, but what does such a role entail?

One system, Cleveland Clinic, is prioritizing analytics as an enterprise-wide strategy with the recent appointment of its first chief analytics officer, Albert Marinez. Marinez sat down with HealthITAnalytics in a recent interview to discuss the challenges he’s facing, the data analytics use cases he’s looking at, and where some of Cleveland Clinic’s analytics priorities are heading into 2024.

OVERCOMING GROWING PAINS

Prior to his appointment at Cleveland Clinic, Marinez served as chief analytics officer at Intermountain Health. While he noted that this experience provides valuable insight into how to guide an enterprise-wide analytics strategy, some challenges are unavoidable as the first person appointed chief analytics officer at a health system.

“The great thing at Cleveland Clinic is that we've had such a long legacy of data and analytics for a long time,” Marinez explained. “So, although I may be the first chief analytics officer, there is a strong foundation that exists, and I am learning about that every day.”

However, this is the first time the health system is pursuing an enterprise-grade strategy that extends across every part of the organization.

“One of the challenges that I have is, how do I take the opportunity to connect and start defining what this role is and what it means? And not doing that myself, but doing that with people,” he said, emphasizing that the role of chief analytics officer can vary significantly from organization to organization. 

“Part of what I'm trying to figure out is, what does ‘chief analytics officer at Cleveland Clinic’ mean?” Marinez said.

Doing so requires that he and his team work to determine how the role fits into the health system’s existing efforts at the forefront of healthcare data analytics.

Marinez also noted that AI and analytics strategies have developed organically at different rates across Cleveland Clinic’s network, which can create potential hurdles to harnessing those innovations and driving them more evenly across the health system.

He explained that he is working to overcome these obstacles by focusing on how collaborative efforts can help scale innovation consistently across the enterprise.

To that end, Marinez has already begun looking at how to advance some of the existing analytics priorities at Cleveland Clinic.

USING DATA ANALYTICS TO IMPROVE CARE

Marinez highlighted that Cleveland Clinic has experienced system-wide growth in the last decade across various areas, including data analytics and improvements in patient care.

As he works to foster that growth in his new role, Marinez is focusing on ensuring “that every single individual and patient deserves and will get world-class care when they enter a Cleveland Clinic facility regardless of where that might be,” he explained.

One of the ways Marinez supports this overarching mission is by ensuring that the health system has consistent strategies and methods by which leadership can measure performance and maintain accountability.

“Top of mind is going to be the safety and [care] quality for our patients,” he noted. “People expect that they're going to be safe and that they're going to get the highest quality care in the world. Does our data support that assertion? And if it doesn't, how do we close that gap?”

He emphasized that a key part of his job involves enabling high-quality care and other outcomes throughout Cleveland Clinic’s network by leveraging data analytics tools and promoting transparency.

Doing so is crucial to ensure patients have a positive experience.

“Whether [patients are] stepping [onto the health system’s main campus] or going into a Cleveland Clinic community hospital, they deserve and expect to get the same level of safety and quality.”

Marinez plans to continue supporting these efforts throughout his tenure, but he noted that the health system is also pursuing additional analytics priorities heading into next year.

PRIORITIES FOR NEXT YEAR

Moving into 2024, Marinez indicated that data quality and integrity will be top priorities to support Cleveland Clinic’s growth and consistently high-quality care for patients.

“Fundamentally, our data assets need to be managed, governed, and of high quality,” he explained.

For this initiative to be successful, Marinez and his team must thoughtfully address two key aspects.

“One is the data governance piece, how we're managing that across the enterprise,” he noted. “And then there’s the data quality piece — how do we ensure that the data integrity is consistent regardless of where it came from?”

These considerations are especially critical for the health system to research and deploy artificial intelligence (AI) tools effectively, he explained, noting that the algorithms cannot be allowed to run on dirty data. Doing so could lead to bias or patient safety issues, necessitating appropriate volumes of high-quality data to drive success in health AI-related initiatives.

“If [Cleveland Clinic wants] to truly scale this and allow for a number of AI use cases to be happening at any one time in the organization, we must have high levels of data quality to support that,” Marinez stated.

This is a challenge faced by many health systems engaging in analytics and AI projects, but addressing the problem of dirty data requires a collaborative approach to data governance that involves a long-term program to coordinate data quality and integrity efforts and monitor progress over time.

To this end, Marinez noted that he is looking for strong partners to help support this work, as the health system is unable to do it alone.

“We cannot do this on our own. It does require an ability to partner with people and organizations that are trying to drive transformation in healthcare with AI and want to go through the hard, gritty work of making it happen,” he said.

“And it is hard, and it is gritty, and it takes time, but identifying those that are willing to make the effort and true partnership work is an area of strong interest of mine. As I think about my priorities for next year, identifying who those top global innovators are in this space will be a priority.”

Overall, Marinez expressed excitement at the opportunities presented by the work he’s doing as Cleveland Clinic’s inaugural chief analytics officer.

“It is humbling to be a part of this organization,” he stated. “[Cleveland Clinic] is absolutely doing some of the most impressive work on the planet, and it's not hyperbole. It's amazing to see it happening while walking through the halls. To be part of this organization at an inflection point with technology and AI is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really be driving change in an organization that is committed to delivering the best clinical care in the world.”