Making a Difference with Analytics – Inspiring Human Interest Stories

Posted June 18, 2020 by Joy King, VP, Vertica Product Management & Product Marketing

I wake up before the sun rises, head to my home office, parse through the emails that have flowed in overnight, and look at my calendar to prepare for my day. I fill daylight hours with meetings, research, more meetings, writing … and more meetings. Sometimes, it is exhausting and even a little overwhelming.

So, what keeps me going? For me, as an innately emotional person, it’s inspiration. Inspiration that what I do matters, that it helps people, businesses, the environment, the economy, and all the other things that make our lives possible. That’s why this new eBook, Making a Difference – Vertica Human Interest Stories, is so special to me, and will be to all our readers.

Improving patient care quality by helping physicians to work more effectively

Now more than ever, we know how important it is to support the medical profession. Doctors carry a level of responsibility that is truly life or death. When they are overloaded with complex systems and bureaucratic processes, they struggle to deliver the level of patient care that drew them to their profession, which for most is a calling. Physicians in the USA experience symptoms of burnout at almost twice the rate of other workers, and that means patient errors, stress levels and cost. But with Cerner’s Millennium Electronic Medical Records (EMR) platform, supporting more than 9,000 health care providers globally, that level of burnout can be significantly reduced. With more than 2,000 “timers” built into the platform, Cerner collects more than 10 billion data points every month that are analyzed by Vertica to enable ongoing product platform improvements and proactive engagement with physicians, hospitals and providers. Knowing that Vertica directly improves the patient experience, the medical outcome, and the health and well-being of the physicians themselves gives me the inspiration to start another day.

Data science and analytics supports an evolution in farm data and farm decision-making

But that’s just the beginning. As I enjoy my first cup of coffee followed with fresh fruits and healthy grains, I think of the impact that Vertica has every day on farmers, enabled by Climate Corporation. Farming was never an area that I imagined as a key opportunity for predictive analytics, until “AgTech” came along. Now, farmers in the rural counties of my home state of North Carolina (and all around the world) have the opportunity to optimize their crop yields, ensure environmental safety and protection, and make decisions to support their families while they feed mine – and yours.

Illuminating real-time data intelligence so that resources are directed to save lives and improve quality of care

And as we all struggle to face the most epic global pandemic of the century, it’s sadly easy to forget some of the crises that were top of mind just a short time ago. One of those crises is the opioid abuse epidemic, which in one state alone, the state of Ohio, is the cause of 14 deaths a day. But for me, even more horrifying is the impact on innocent children whose parents cannot feed them or care for them due to opioid addiction. My heart breaks for the thousands of children who are now in foster care or child protective services due to this horrible addiction. So it’s no wonder that I am so proud of the role that Vertica plays in Pulselight’s predictive analytics solution, identifying and proactively engaging with impacted individuals and families before it’s too late. By processing 1.5 billion records every day and shining a light on the insights in that massive data, Pulselight, powered by Vertica, reaches the pinnacle of inspiration for me.

As stated by Irene Manautou Williams, CEO of Pulselight, “This improves the quality of care, reduces costs, and ultimately saves lives.”

Inspiration comes in many forms, but one thing remains constant – we all need inspiration, and now more than ever, I look to the impact that Vertica has on our world every day to feed me the inspiration I need to believe I’m making a difference.

Sponsored by Vertica