Q&A With MetricAid’s Expert Data Analyst: Casey Wike
Casey Wike, Data Analyst
We sat down with one of MetricAid’s employees to showcase how his background and expertise help him understand the numbers that go into improving your ED performance metrics.
Casey Wike, a data analyst at MetricAid, has been with us since 2018. His years of experience in the healthcare industry have helped him develop a profound understanding of patient flow and the resource distribution problems found in a modern emergency department (ED). Casey’s background makes him the ideal candidate for leveraging data to improve the performance of your ED.
Q: How long have you worked in the healthcare industry, and what were your responsibilities before coming to MetricAid?
Before moving to MetricAid, I spent 18 years working at two different Toronto hospitals. I started as a volunteer at the Hospital for Sick Children ED where my job was to make children and parents happy. I was given unlimited stickers and freezies and acted as a middleman between parents and staff. After a few months, I took over running the phones for the entire ED. I learned a lot from these two experiences as they gave me a good understanding of patient flow and how EDs operate.
With my experience from the Hospitals of Sick Children, I transitioned to a unit clerk at Mount Sinai Hospital where for 10 years I handled internal communications, manned the fax machines and took care of insurance issues. I worked the night shifts, which was nice because they were super busy when you got there, but they’d slow down by the end. By the time I left Mount Sinai Hospital, I was registering patients and managing the ED bed board.
Q: After spending so many years working for hospitals in Toronto, what inspired you to deviate from that career path and apply your experience in the physician scheduling industry?
I had a history with the company’s CEO, Les Blackwell, who kept me updated on what the company was doing. As I wasn’t taking advantage of the Toronto lifestyle like I did when I was younger, I decided to make a change. Working with MetricAid provides me with a great work/life balance and the culture they have built and their mission also make me want to be part of MetricAid’s success.
Q: What are your responsibilities at MetricAid, and what key benefits do they provide to our service and clients?
My job is to gather data for our Advanced + EM clients. The data we collect is used to build performance-based physician schedules. I work with our clients to collect data, verify it, and upload it into our software tool. I also create reports for clients so they can better understand how their departments operate and from which they can make informed strategic and HR decisions.
Q: As a data analyst with many years of experience working with emergency departments, how does your background help you fulfil your responsibilities and contribute to the company's mission?
The biggest qualification, I would say, is understanding emergency department workflow and funding. With this knowledge, you understand the decision-making process. Many departments collect data but don’t use it effectively. By using the data to create various reports, I help them make better-informed decisions. MetricAid's performance-based schedules, which are built using self-scheduling and performance data, have the unique effect of reducing patient wait times, increasing hospital and physician revenues, and improving the overall patient experience.
Q: What is something that you look for in the data you collect that can indicate areas for improvement in emergency departments and other healthcare facilities?
I look for accurate data. I spend a lot of my time scrubbing dirty data. Sometimes a hospital-level entry error occurs and incorrect data is captured, which can drastically skew statistics. It's very difficult to make good strategic decisions off the back of bad data and is part of the reason hospitals struggle to use the data they collect. My experience collecting and analyzing data from dozens of hospitals throughout the country makes me uniquely skilled at catching things that are just a bit off and can really affect the overall analysis. Once these errors are corrected, we have confidence that our physician schedules and reports will lead to positive change.
Best practices for collecting quality data are outlined in an earlier article written by Casey himself. This post can be found here.
Q: What is, in your experience, one thing all emergency departments should consider when thinking about improving patient flow and decreasing wait times?
I think all EDs should consider using performance-based scheduling. Lowering wait times, improving efficiency, reducing physician burnout and increasing revenue at the same time is a great win for everyone.
To learn more about how MetricAid uses patient flow and department performance data to make better schedules, visit our website or contact our team at sales@metricaid.com.
Cheers,
MetricAid
