Leveraging big data analytics to improve quality of care in healthcare organizations: A configurational perspective

Big data analytics (BDA) is beneficial for organizations, yet implementing BDA to leverage profitability is fundamental challenge confronting practitioners. Although prior research has explored the impact that BDA has on business growth, there is a lack of research that explains the full complexity of BDA implementations. Examination of how and under what conditions BDA achieves organizational performance from a holistic perspective is absent from the existing literature. Extending the theoretical perspective from the traditional views (e.g. resource‐based theory) to configuration theory, the authors have developed a conceptual model of BDA success that aims to investigate how BDA capabilities interact with complementary organizational resources and organizational capabilities in multiple configuration solutions leading to higher quality of care in healthcare organizations. To test this model, the authors use fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to analyse multi‐source data acquired from a survey and databases maintained by the Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The findings suggest that BDA, when given alone, is not sufficient in achieving the outcome, but is a synergy effect in which BDA capabilities and analytical personnel's skills together with organizational resources and capabilities as supportive role can improve average excess readmission rates and patient satisfaction in healthcare organizations.