Pittsburgh is a town that makes things. Now UPMC is embracing the spirit of the Steel City as it starts to sell the analytics tools it's built for its own use to other providers.

[See also: Analytics means we 'roll up our sleeves']

Speaking in Denver this past summer, Pamela Peele, chief analytics officer of UPMC Health Plan, echoed the industrial character of the city in her description of the health system's data mining strategies. Robust analytics require that they "roll up (their) sleeves," she said. "We run an analytics shop just like we would run a factory," Peele added. "But we don't make widgets; we make knowledge."

Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, UPMC is in talks with potential partners to market its clinical and business intelligence technologies to customers hoping to recognize the same care and efficiency improvements as it has.

[See also: UPMC data exchange technology seeks to spur supply chain efficiencies]

UPMC has long recognized the importance of IT, and it backs that up with substantial spending: It's invested more than $1.6 billion in infrastructure over the past half-decade, Peele pointed out -- more than Pittsburgh has spent on three professional sports stadiums combined. ("And we take sports seriously," she said.)

Now its time for others to reap some of the benefits of the health system's renowned analytics program, Robert DeMichiei, UPMC's chief financial officer, tells WSJ.com. DeMichiei, working with the UPMC IT department, is overseeing the project.

The analytics technology measures the resources and costs devoted to specific procedures -- equipment used, length of stay, time spent in the OR -- and compares it to baseline data. UPMC-developed modeling algorithms then crunch the numbers and generate efficiency reports for physicians via an app build by Oracle.

Docs are able to view their own results -- alongside those of their anonymized colleagues -- to help them work towards better practices, according to DeMichiei, who tells the paper that some UPMC physicians are already starting to change their ways of doing things, but, "We just now just getting into the discussions of acting on the data."

The tools, which cost as much $12 million to develop, will be deployed across nine UPMC facilities by this summer; there are disccussions taking place with three potential partners about commercializing the analytics approach, and it's hoped there will be an agreement in place within the next three months, according to WSJ.