Three Key Reasons to Switch to Interactive Data Visualization

Are you still using static visuals when interactive data visualization is available?  What is data visualization?!  Well, I’m glad you asked.  Data visualization is the presentation of information in a graphical form such that insights can be gleaned or decisions made.  It helps one to communicate information effectively, efficiently and clearly.  In today’s environment, traditional tools used to create static reports for decision-making and other purposes just don’t cut the mustard anymore.  Instead, newer tools that allow for interactive data visualization help address many of the ills created by static reports in a world of dynamic data creation.  According to Gartner’s 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms, there are several leaders in this space – Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, and Qlikview, to name a few.

In the life sciences industry, in particular, those who consume data have to contend with data that is spread across disparate sources, not standardized, and needing to be amalgamated in order to make some sense of it all.  Let’s take clinical trial management, for example.  Have you ever wished there was a way to identify safety issues or trends across sites in real-time? Have you ever wondered how to see the most up-to-date patient enrollment numbers?  Have you pondered how you can better draw conclusions across multiple studies with data stored in multiple silos?  Have you been in a meeting where trial data was presented and you wanted to ask a what-if question?  These and many other questions have crossed the minds of various individuals who work supporting some aspect of clinical trials.  Well, the good news is that these questions can all be answered, and have been answered by those in the life sciences industry who are now reaping the benefits of using interactive data visualization to address their questions.

Here are three key reasons why more life sciences companies are using interactive data visualization:

• Ability to Amalgamate Data: It takes time to manually pull together different data sets from different sources that are in different formats, and get them to a point of being able to create a report. As time passes, data quickly becomes outdated and of less value to those who requested a summary report. With visualization tools, companies can quickly integrate data from disparate sources and in different formats, gain valuable insight, and make timelier data-based decisions.
• Ability to Make Real-time Assessments: Quite often, as mentioned earlier, there comes a time during meetings where a what-if question arises. Unfortunately, during a review of data (let’s say in a PowerPoint slide deck), static visuals cannot be manipulated on the fly. Being able to inquire more deeply into the data in real-time with visualization tools, enhances one’s ability to tell the story behind the data and to get a response to those hypothetical inquiries.
• Ability to Gain Efficiencies: Business users can create and make adjustments to data visuals on their own, and without the need to rely on assistance from IT. They spend less time waiting for a query to be run and a report to be generated, and benefit by having more time to obtain answers to inquiries regarding the data. With visualization tools, companies are benefiting from productivity increases, cycle time reductions, and financial savings.

If you are still using static visuals, transition to interactive data visualization. Pharmica Consulting is available to help assess your current needs, recommend an optimal solution, and get you on the track to gaining greater insights, and making better and timelier decisions.