Improve Every Outcome
Discover how we improve
healthcare outcomes
using advanced analytics.
Our proven approach delivers results.
We are experts in using contextual analytics in healthcare organizations to improve quality of care, decrease expenses, and increase the satisfaction of nurses and clinicians in all disciplines.
Science for Decisions
We use the entire scientific process, carefully selected analytic methods, and dynamic algorithms that help you identify in real-time the relevant factors requiring change to avoid undesirable outcomes.
Job
Satisfaction
Our Healthcare Environment Survey is the most extensively tested measure of nurse job satisfaction in the world, used by organizations to improve employee satisfaction, increase quality of care, and optimize operations.
Quality
of Care
Our easy-to-understand reports help leaders across the organization make decisions that improve processes, advance better health outcomes, and save money.
Adaptive Technology
Our technology is designed to adapt to your organization’s current technology and data processes. We are able to interface with EMR systems, including Epic and Cerner. Our technology is HIPAA-compliant and can grow with you.
Intentional Outcomes
Use true Predictive Analytics to move from reactive to proactive management of outcomes
Know the truth
Analytics in healthcare are often based on incomplete evidence, assumptions, or insufficient algorithms, rather than true scientific process. As a result, millions of dollars are wasted in initiatives that fail to improve operations and decrease expenses.
Healthcare Environment has a proven track record of creating relevant models for healthcare organizations that produces true predictive analytics. The result has been millions of dollars saved in operational costs while improving quality of care.
True predictive analytics examines outcomes proactively (before they occur) by using data trends and dynamic models that adjust in real time to resolution of identified risk with concurrent emergence of new risk.
Models matter because they can be precise or abstract. Only models that integrate existing evidence and context will be precise to inform what operations are causing the outcome of interest.
Our Healthcare Environment Data and Survey Software (HEDSS) is designed to automatically respecify (update) the model of measurement to identify emerging risk and what operational areas require resolution.
We Produce Measurable Results
$1.6M
ROI
patient falls
$956,000
ANNUAL SAVINGS
clabsi incidents
$5.6M
ROI
length-of-stay
52%
IMPROVEMENT
teamwork
Discover our rigorous process for defining and delivering true predictive analytics. We are backed by 19+ years of real-world experience across 492 organizations and 34 countries.
Triadic Partnerships
Healthcare Environment partners with hospitals, businesses, and universities to advance the science of healthcare outcomes within the context of caring. The common denominator of these partnerships is data derived from good measures and expertly specified models. Healthcare Environment is the place where a hunch becomes a measure, context defines a model, and data becomes the map for improvement of an outcome. We are continually building a community of professionals and providing opportunities to deepen understanding within the complex environment of healthcare.
We invite you to review our current partners and to apply for consideration as a future partner in our global community researching the quadruple aim.
Within this partnership we help each party use data to improve the curriculum within the school and performance of the employee within healthcare. We do this by studying what system, human, and clinical variables impact performance. This helps academia refine their curriculum by understanding the predictors of performance and helps operations get the most finely trained staff from the academic setting. This truly closes the theory- practice gap.
When healthcare operations hire businesses, we serve as an independent evaluator of the services those businesses provide. In these instances, both parties benefit significantly because we don’t just measure effectiveness as experienced by operations; we also ensure that proper measurement is taking place which helps to capture and articulate the expertise provided by the business. This enables us to leverage the expertise and technology of businesses seeking to improve care while providing an objective review of performance. Data can then be used to refine the business for the purpose of improving operations and outcomes.
Data from our business partners can help inform curriculum. For example, a pain specialist with a new “model of comfort” might need help validating the theory behind the new model, which, once developed, can be of great value to those in academia. Development of theory using carefully thought out measurement makes the concept visible empirically, which then helps academia understand new evidence for curriculum refinement. Development of this new measure then makes the “model of comfort” amenable to study in the clinical setting as well, which then develops evidence that can be used by academia for curriculum development.
Global Research
We are the pioneer in establishing a platform for international benchmarking data.
Our Data
Participants include clinical leaders from clinical sites collecting data, students or researchers using data to conduct secondary analysis, and academicians who use our data for curriculum development.
Benchmarks
Member organizations use our global data to compare their organization to what is occurring globally. Benchmarking is also available at unit, department, hospital, multi-hospital system, and national level
Research
We conduct and promote a framework of research using rigorous and proven science and mathematics. Participating organizations are able to utilize this framework to maximize their contributions and benefit from the findings in a more effective and efficient manner.
Leadership
CEO
Cathy Schwartz, PhD, RN
Dr. Schwartz brings her passionate expertise in professional healthcare practice and healthy work environments to Healthcare Environment. Her mission is to aid each care provider to be their best and each healthcare organization to be the best place in which care is received.
Over her 30 years of practice, she has actively collaborated and partnered with a 300+ hospital consortium across the U.S. and Canada to improve interdisciplinary practice and care environments through shared governance, clinical ladders, and clinical documentation systems as well as quality improvement, communication, and implementation of scientific methods.
She has served in the roles of clinician, nurse educator, clinical nurse specialist, adjunct faculty, administrator, research associate, CNO, as well as SVP at Elsevier. She is a Helene Fuld Fund Fellow in Partnerships for Leadership in Nursing Education and Practice.
Dr. Schwartz’ research areas include model and instrument construction, professional nurse role, value of nursing work, nursing classification systems, data mining of electronic health records, intervention effectiveness, and use of Latent Class Analysis methods. She was selected as a University of Iowa’s Dare to Discover 2021 distinguished researcher.
Dr. Schwartz volunteers her time to serve on the national Context of Care and Nursing Value Workgroup sponsored by the Nursing Knowledge Big Data Science Initiative and as the President of the Gamma Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International.
President
John Nelson, PhD, MS, RN
Dr. Nelson founded Healthcare Environment with a passion and vision to improve the working environment for nurses, clinicians, and patients based on true science. Over the past 20 years, he has conducted research around the world, authored multiple publications, and is the creator of The Profile of Caring® instrument—the most accurate assessment in the world to measure wellbeing at work for healthcare professionals. The 35-item assessment is central to improving wellbeing and outcomes in organizations across 18 countries.
Dr. Nelson is Founder and President of the Caring Science International Collaborative, the international group that oversees the current 2022-2023 study in wellbeing using The Profile of Caring. His expertise in predictive modeling informs operations leaders of the relevant factors to address which will improve staff wellbeing, promote retention, and improve patient outcomes. His book, Using Predictive Analytics to Improve Healthcare Outcomes , is the 2021 winner of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) Book of the Year Award for Informatics. The book outlines and illustrates his 16-step process to understand the story as told by staff, which informs the scientific models at the unit-level. These models are then implemented using current technology to deliver predictive analytics and real-time forecasting. This proven process has improved patient outcomes while saving organizations millions of dollars.
Team Impact
Broad Experience
Our team has worked together since 2001 in over 30 countries, using our proprietary HIPAA-compliant software to gather and collate data for the purpose of proactively managing and improving healthcare outcomes. This wide use of our measures and associated scientific testing has facilitated global conversations about context and outcomes with associated improved outcomes and cost savings. It has also created the first international measurement to accurately test the degree to which an organization is meeting the “quadruple aim” as defined by IHI.
Our Profile of Caring™ and Profile of Safety™ products help coach your staff to provide the most pleasant and safe experience for patients while making the work environment more satisfying for the employee.
Extensive Knowledge
Healthcare Environment’s global research has resulted in partnerships with universities, companies, healthcare facilities, and content experts. These partnerships enable all parties to excel in ways participants could not have imagined. Most importantly from the view of Healthcare Environment, we have been able to help advance sensitive (accurate) measurement of many aspects of the complex world of healthcare. This triad partnering of Healthcare Environment, people in operations, and academics across the world is closing the gap between academics, research, and practice.