Building a professional infrastructure for healthcare analytics is not rocket science. There are hundreds of software tools available to create a manageable framework and platform for developing and supporting analytic applications. There is also a vast army of experts with decades of experience creating and supporting these applications around the globe. And there is an enormous knowledge-base that can turn any IT professional into an analytics guru.

However, while disputed in some quarters, most experienced analytics and BI professionals agree in principal with Gartner Group’s recurring analysis that most analytic projects fail to achieve their original objectives.

The biggest challenge is to recognize that analytic projects are different from other IT projects in nearly every respect: from the mind set of the project leaders and participants, to the technology used, to the project management skills required.