Turning healthcare program data into actionable insights with embedded Power BI

Company overview

One of the world’s leading biotechnology companies, this healthcare innovator is dedicated to discovering, developing, and delivering advanced therapies for patients with serious medical conditions. With a strong focus on oncology, immunology, and rare diseases, the company partners with healthcare providers and research communities worldwide to advance medical science and improve patient outcomes.

Challenges

Their company currently has an application through which they manage their needed a seamless way to monitor, manage, and analyze their physician engagement programs. Their existing reporting was heavily Excel-based and fragmented, while they also needed real-time operational and financial visibility within the application itself.

Integration and access constraints Without an embedded reporting solution, users had to switch between multiple systems. Secure access management was also a concern, with the need to control who could view and filter program reports at a granular level within their existing web application.

Limited visibility into program operations Business users lacked intuitive dashboards to track key details of physician programs—such as speaker contracts, participant data, venue costs, and event statuses—across cardiology, radiology, and other departments. This gap made budget monitoring, compliance, and decision-making cumbersome.

Solution

Our team redesigned the reporting ecosystem by migrating the on-premise MySQL data into an Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Factory for daily data pipelines. This cloud-based source now powers embedded Power BI dashboards, integrated directly into the company’s physician engagement application (developed and maintained by another wing of our organization). Using Azure Active Directory, secure single sign-on was implemented, allowing users to access reports within their familiar workflow.

We built two core embedded dashboards—Process Monitoring and Operational Reporting—that deliver comprehensive, filterable insights into program planning, execution, and expenses. The dashboards capture every aspect of an event lifecycle, from booking venues and training speakers to tracking contracts, reimbursements, and participant experiences.

Here are the metrics and details the reports highlighted

• Process monitoring dashboard: Track program statuses (pending, closed, dropped, cancelled), contracts, speaker training, and compliance notes.

• Operational dashboard: Drill into program budgets, forecast vs. actual spend, speaker fees, venue and food costs, and payment details.

• Participant insights: View attendee demographics, repeat participation, meals consumed, and feedback captured during programs.

• Granular filters: Filter reports by department, program year, coordinator, location, or vendor to get tailored insights.

• Integrated notes & documentation: Capture and report discussion notes, contracts, and sign-in sheets at the program level.

• Embedded experience: Power BI reports directly inside the application with Azure AD–based secure login, eliminating the need for Excel exports.

How embedded analytics helped their team?

Instead of relying on scattered Excel exports or external BI tools, business users can now view dashboards inside the very portal where all program data is managed. This means that physician contracts, event expenses, participant details, and compliance notes can be analyzed in real time, without context-switching. And when this rich internal data is compared with external sources (such as market data, therapeutic areas, or regional spending), it opens the door for meaningful, multidimensional analysis—helping stakeholders understand not just what happened, but also why it matters in the larger healthcare and research ecosystem.

Final thoughts

The healthcare leader gained real-time, embedded analytics to manage program budgets, compliance, and physician engagement efficiently turning a manual Excel-based reporting process into an automated, scalable, and user-friendly system.