The benefits that applying analytics to data has long been understood. But generally the big data solutions we’ve seen thus far have been targeted towards broad horizontal opportunities (the entire sales process or marketing automation for example). It’s interesting to see a tightly focused vertical application of big data analytics.
A case in point today from Truveris, a company that makes software specifically for the pharmacy benefit industry. Specifically Truveris focuses on the prescription claims process - a long, complex and (to my mind at least) fairly boring part of the broader medical industry. Specifically Truveris helps payers of pharmacy benefits negotiate agreements with Prescription Benefit Managers (PBMs), validate claim payment accuracy, ensure regulatory compliance, and manage pharmacy spend.
Anyway, Truveris is introducing RxDash which is an interesting glimpse at what a very narrowly focused analytics play can do. RxDash is a pharmacy plan modelling, pricing and reporting solution that helps to give everyone on the pharmaceutical continuum see the impacts of pricing changes quickly and transparently. The idea being that proposed benefit changes can change costings, illustrate the effect of plan changes on employees and visualize different pricing approaches.
And, while this is indeed a thin vertical to focus on, it’s an important one. In the US alone, pharmacy benefits is a $300 billion industry. It’s also one which is fraught with complexity and highly inefficient. While pharmaceutical’s are but one part of a very big health sector, it’s an important part to focus upon. Truveris’ cloud-based platform already analyzes approximately 10% of all the prescriptions written in the US. That massive scale offers up some interesting big data opportunities.
While this is, on the one hand, a story of interest only to a tight band of people within the pharmacy industry, it’s also a broader story. By taking formerly siloed processes, that made collaboration at all stages of a process difficult, and applying analytics, collaboration and visibility to it, the game here is being changed.
Taking the RxDash example, and thinking about how it could be applied to other parts of the health sector or, indeed, other sectors altogether, is a useful exercise. The cloud, big data, predictive analytics are all variations on a theme that is changing the face of how organizations work. RxDash is a nice case study for all of that.
