Product Review: AI Comes to Data Analytics

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Artificial Intelligence has existed in basic forms for many years and has recently advanced to include augmented intelligence and generative intelligence. The Rowan Report has provided several examples of quality AI usage and even more examples of AI applications that are fraudulent, improperly applied, and/or poorly executed. As we continue our journey of AI discovery, we are seeing more companies researching how to effectively use AI to enhance existing software solutions as well as new solutions entirely based on AI. We’ve reviewed AI software for point of referral, talk to text documentation, employee recruitment and retention, and now data analytics.

The Rowan Report recently met the founder of a data analytics AI software solution, Skyra.ai. “Our goal is to advance the industry to be technology forward,” said Skyra founder Mickel Mirchandani, “we imagined a future were technology empowers home care agencies to focus on what matters – serving patients.”

Care at Home agencies have no shortage of access to reports through various tech solutions. Hours worked and earnings from payroll reporting, average length of visit and number of patients per week from EMR and EVV reports, average daily census, employee turnover rate, and the list goes on. These reports are useful in telling us what is happening within our agency, with our staff, and with our partners. Once you have this information, what do you do with it? Does it tell you why your top clinician saw five fewer clients last week? Does it explain the decrease in referrals from area hospitals and physicians? Can the reports tell you whether the recent trends will continue? Why are these things happening in your agency? And what’s more, how do I fix them?

Like the warning light on your dashboard, data is meaningless until it is diagnosed. That warning light that tells you your referral numbers dropped last week might indicate new competition in your area, a drop in confidence in your agency by hospitals and physicians, too many NTUCs on your scorecard, or simply a glitch in paperwork or your website. The data tells you the numbers have dropped. Skyra.ai tells you why.

Skyra is a data analytics solution that connects to your EMR, payroll, accounts payable, scheduling, and quite literally almost any other piece of your tech stack that has useful data you want to see.

With a standard dashboard containing the most relevant and popular queries, and the ability to create custom insights, Skyra makes understanding the volumes of data collected simple and easy. Once you understand the “why” behind the numbers, you can make adjustments in your operating, scheduling, ordering, and operations to improve the overall health of your agency.

• “Ask Sky” – the Generative AI assistant you can tap into for custom insights into your agency
• Compliance Monitor to avoid payment penalties by ensuring accuracy and timeliness of submissions
• Control Tower for key metrics and alerts

Data analytics is difficult enough without using multiple tech solutions. Even worse is when you’ve decided that a particular solution no longer works for your agency and you find yourself shopping for a new payroll, scheduling, or EMR solution. How do you preserve the years of data from your legacy systems without interruption?

Skyra.ai’s unique process stores all your data as though it comes from the same source, in the same language. Switching from solution to solution is a seamless process that keeps your data intact and reduces the opportunity cost of changing systems.

The team at Skyra is not content with one of the most advanced AI applications in the space. With a recently redesigned website, and new partners, Skyra is now looking to the future. Look for a two-way communication solution over a secured system with encrypted messages. The messaging system will connect caregivers to patients, patients to care teams, and caregivers, to care teams. The solution will reduce triage costs, reduce rehospitalizations rates, assist with marketing efforts, and increase CHAP scores. Skra Connect will launch sometime in 2025.

But, first, Skyra is focusing its development efforts on an application for sales teams and marketers. An alternative to a traditional CRM that requires large amounts of useless data input and doesn’t help close a deal, Skyra’s sales solution will provide a CRM solution that sales people actually want to use and will free up their time to spend on customer-facing activities. 

The Rowan Report will provide a separate review of each of these new products as they become available. 

Skyra.ai found Mickel tells a familiar story about the idea for his solution. Familiar, at least, to those of us who grew up in the 80s. When our favorite band released new songs, we ran to the nearest music retail store to buy a cassette tape. If your favorite song on the tape was track 3, you know the pains of fast forwarding and rewinding to get the tape to the perfect spot at the beginning of the song, only to have to do it all over again when the song ends. Today, we ask “Alexa” or “Siri” or “Google” to play our favorite song and it starts at exactly the right second every time. Mickel strove to make accessing and understand data as easy as asking Alexa to play your favorite song. Ask Sky removes the fast forward and rewind buttons and lets you understand your data faster. 

As a small business, and even as an individual, I know how many applications I have to log in to daily to see my business analytics and personal information. Skyra houses all of your business information in one place for easy access and provides an open-ended query so each agency gets the information they need most to help the agency operate at its fullest potential. The possibilities that will exist as the AI technology advances is near endless.

As we have mentioned before, there are a lot of misuses for artificial intelligence, and a lot of misunderstanding. Now, it seems, we have found at least one more company doing AI well.

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Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com