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Rachini Moosavi, Chief Analytics Officer, UNC Health

Describe your career to date

I started my career as a hospital patient flow consultant. In this role, I learned how to map out processes, redefine processes and measure subsequent data, build basic macros and write basic SQL, and become an Excel wizard. My affinity was for data, and more specifically Excel. 
When I joined UNC Health two years later as a Reimbursement Analyst, I leveraged those Excel and change management skills for physician billing analytics. As an analyst and then the first Manager of Analytics within our health system, I led initiatives to develop the strategy and assets for the most needed revenue cycle dashboards, self-service reports, data products, and databases. I also held user group meetings to grow literacy and skills on the billing data. My team of ten analytics professionals provided business analysis support and data and analytics assets.  

After nine years in revenue cycle, I made a firm commitment to advancing analytics at UNC Health and joined our inaugural Enterprise Analytics and Data Science team. I successfully started data governance for the system and led efforts to enable the broader community of analytics reporting teams. My work in this space and the boost of the coronavirus pandemic driving analytics adoption, allowed me to become Vice President in 2021 of our combine business-facing Enterprise Analytics team and IT-facing Data team. By 2023, my leadership achievements earned me the recognition as Chief Analytics Office for UNC Health, where I lead the data, interoperability, artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics efforts for the system today. 

How are you developing the data literacy of your organization, including the skills of your data teams and of your business stakeholders?  

I have a comprehensive list of ways to approach and improve data literacy within UNC Health: 

  • Invest in the Center of Excellence (Community Analytics) model for analytics across the organization. 

  • Defined the role of central analytics versus the capabilities and support offerings for the community of analytics professionals and enthusiasts. 

  • Created data and analytics positions for the whole organization that align to training, enablement, and collaboration with IT. 

  • Analytics leaders forum. 

  • Community membership listing with skills identification. 

  • Established stewardship roles to drive data governance. 

  • Lead bi-weekly analytics community webinars to share knowledge, celebrate success, offer hard and soft skill training, and grow literacy. Jordan Morrow has been a guest speaker twice to promote data literacy. 

  • Multiple enablement vehicles – Chat via Teams group for over 450 teammates, consultations with an expert, and road shows to engage each of our entities’ leaders and end users. 

  • Bi-annual community and leader survey to evaluate the success of the programs. 

  • Data governance at UNC Health began by focusing on enablement. 

  • Stewardship roles defined and individuals identified. 

  • Documentation and certification of data and analytics assets for building common vocabulary and institutional trust in assets. 

  • The Data Governance Council defines priorities and endorses proper use and creation of clean, reusable data and supporting architecture. 

  • Dashboards in analytics repository must go through certification process. 

  • Training videos promote tools that enable literacy. 

  • The Analytics Community (TAC) Orientation to onboard new hires to our data and analytics ecosystem. 

  • AI training to inform and educate on AI. 

What role do you play in building and delivering conventional AI solutions, including machine learning models? Are you involved in your organization’s adoptions of generative AI? 

The UNC Health Data and Analytics Vision Statement is to “build a place where world-class health care is naturally driven by insights.” 

Every three years, our Enterprise Analytics department collaborates with customers from across the healthcare system to reset our 2–3-year strategy for data and analytics. At the end of 2022, I used my experience from the Carnegie Melon University CDataO Certificate program to take my organization through a Gartner engagement to develop a future state architecture plan and through the Gartner DASOM assessment. 

By engaging customers to gather their business and clinical use cases and aligning to the health system strategic priorities of patients, academics, operations, transformation, my team has customized a plan to these business needs and will allow us to further support our healthcare-focused vision statement. 

Data and analytics future state architecture for the organization includes Cloud migration, data fabric, modern data architecture, enhanced BI and visualization, AI transformation, and automation. 

Data and analytics strategic objectives that EADS leaders meet bimonthly to review progress to goals include: 

  • Align with the business strategy to fuel transformation. 

  • Advance our mission through future state architecture. 

  • Enable broad use of trusted data. 

The aim of the data vision is to “enable our organization to achieve its greatest potential – #LeadtheWay in healthcare and leverage our #OneGreatTeam to enhance clinical, operational, administrative, and financial outcomes.” I ask my team to progress and engage at all three levels of action and planning – tactical, operational, and strategic; but always aligned to the purpose driven “Why”. 

What are the key challenges to your data function that you are facing as its leader? 

As CAO, the centralized Data Science team is part of our department. UNC Health started our journey into data science back in 2016. I was a founding leader of the team that brought this capability here. I have either been consulted or led much of the journey to get our program where it is today.  

Our Data Science team has over a dozen ML models, algorithms, and risk models in production. These solutions have significantly impacted the quality of care, reimbursement, and hospitals. The CIO and I led the push for generative AI (genAI) adoption. We did this by educating; creating a space for brainstorming, collaborating with trusted partners, and testing homegrown solutions. We are one of the few health systems leading in the space of genAI adoption. 

Rachini Moosavi
has been included in:
  • 100 Brands 2024 (USA)

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