Spending less time compiling data and more time acting on it

Ocean Health Initiative (OHI) is a community health center dedicated to providing high-quality care to the residents of Ocean and Monmouth counties in New Jersey. With six locations and one school-based site, OHI manages a large volume of data. However, due to manual data clean-up processes, turning that data into meaningful, actionable insights was often a challenge.

By partnering with athenahealth's Advisory Services, they were able to implement a comprehensive reporting package that automated manual processes, standardized data definitions, and ultimately transformed their business performance.

Before: Spending more time gathering data than acting on it

Before engaging Advisory Services, OHI faced challenges in governing data and managing how they received and reported data, which impacted their operational efficiency and overall productivity. They relied heavily on manual reporting processes, which was time-consuming. The resulting delays in generating insights impacted their business operations and progress against their goals.

As an FQHC, OHI is subject to requirements such as FHIR-based data reporting, which reflects a broader industry push for data transparency, and real-time insight into care and delivery. These mandates aim to streamline public health reporting but require systems that can submit structured data without manual lift. Before partnering with Advisory Services, OHI’s resource constraints made it exceptionally difficult to meet these mandates.

Additionally, Ocean Health Initiative struggled to find the right reporting and data expertise to automate their analytics needs. This gap in staffing limited their ability to leverage data effectively.

During: Creating a framework for success

Recognizing these challenges, Ocean Health Initiative turned to athenahealth's Advisory Services for support. The team at athenahealth began by establishing a comprehensive data governance structure, which prioritized report requirements. This step established a foundation for clarity and consistency in data management going forward.

To address the immediate reporting needs, athenahealth delivered eight pre-defined Power BI dashboards, complete with optimized datasets. This significantly accelerated the development and delivery of high-priority reports, allowing OHI to access critical insights more quickly. Advisory Services experts then developed customized reports tailored to the specific needs of the organization, including wrap billing, LOA, Title X, scheduling, payer, and HRSA QI insight reports. By focusing on the unique requirements of OHI, athenahealth provided relevant and meaningful insights that directly impacted operational performance and empowered OHI to meet federal mandates without introducing unsustainable manual burden.

In addition to these tools, athenahealth worked closely with Ocean Health Initiative to identify business improvement opportunities based on the new insights generated. This collaborative approach guided change management and performance improvement initiatives, ensuring that their organization can adapt and thrive in a highly regulated environment.

After: Results that speak for themselves

Since implementing athenahealth's solutions, Ocean Health Initiative has experienced significant improvements across several critical metrics. The most notable achievement has been a remarkable 77% reduction in the time required to generate insights.* This time savings has allowed staff to redirect their efforts toward more strategic initiatives, ultimately enhancing the quality of care provided to patients.

Beyond time savings, Ocean Health Initiative moved from manual and reactive reporting processes to automated, advanced, and strategic analytics capabilities. This advancement has empowered the organization to leverage insights more effectively, driving better decision-making and operational efficiency. The partnership with athenahealth has also led to enhanced patient access and scheduling, increased revenue generation, and strengthened data integration and automation capabilities.

Here are the tangible metric improvements OHI saw between March 2024 and March 2025, after their engagement with Advisory Services:

- Operations

• 25% increase to encounter volume by month
• 46% reduction in no-show rate
• 33% reduction in cancellation rate

- Revenue Cycle

• 21% improvement in charges by post month
• 44% reduction in A/R by post month
• 47% improvement in clean claim rate*

Keila Ramos, Senior Vice President of Revenue Cycle and Practice Management for OHI, says, “By partnering with the athenahealth Advisory Services Analytics team, we gained automated insights tailored to FQHCs and Ocean Health Initiative. Our team worked diligently to turn data into action – an undertaking that was far from easy. As a result, our leaders were able to prioritize improvement opportunities and reshape how we operate our business more quickly and accurately. These changes have led to more streamlined workflows, a reduction in A/R, and an overall revenue lift for our organization.”

Learn how Advisory Services insights can support your business

The collaboration between Ocean Health Initiative and athenahealth's Advisory Services illustrates the power of strategic and optimized data governance and reporting structures to overcome business hurdles. Over the course of their engagement, OHI addressed critical challenges and achieved its operational goals. By automating reporting processes, standardizing data definitions, and enhancing data governance, Ocean Health Initiative is now better equipped to leverage insights for strategic decision-making.

If your organization is facing similar challenges and is looking to enhance operational efficiency and data capabilities, discover how athenahealth's Advisory Services can transform your business today.