Gut feelings and “I think” or “I believe” no longer carry weight. The regular use of data by decision makers will hopefully be one that helps prevent a crisis of this magnitude from occurring again.
Continue readingWe Need Data
Featured Articles
COVID-19 Pandemic: Optimistic Heart and Worrying Head
With our focus on what is happening in New York, many are missing what is happening elsewhere.
Continue readingNot the Time to Ease Up
I hope that the general public, while rooting for the people of NYC, understand that their own fate depends upon them maintaining social distance, washing their hands, and obeying the advice of public officials.
Continue readingFrom Snow to Achuff: Using Analytics to Drive Clinical Change
John Snow, the English physician whose work arguably helped to halt an 1854 London cholera epidemic, is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology. Drawing on his knowledge of statistics, Snow decided to plot …
Continue readingEnterprise Analytics: Data, Insight, Process Change, Repeat
In 1966, Avedis Donabedian proposed a conceptual model for examining health services and evaluating quality of care. The Donabedian model includes three pillars: structure, process, and outcomes. As organizations strive to excel in healthcare’s world …
Continue readingDigitally Driven: Link Technology to Process Change
There are essentially two types of dashboards: point analytics dashboards and surveillance dashboards. Point analytics dashboards, sometimes described as ad-hoc analytics reports, focus on examining data to identify the potential cause of an unwanted outcome. …
Continue readingWhat Pop Health Needs to Learn from Consumer Marketing
American retailers understand their customers and use data to influence what they buy, what they pay, and when they return for more. With more than 68 percent of the U.S. economy driven by consumer spending, …
Continue readingAI: Augmented Intelligence or Electric Sheep?
Visionary Elon Musk fears it. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking worried about it. Microsoft’s Bill Gates embraces it. Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote about androids having the capacity to dream because of it. At HIMSS 2019, everyone talked about it.
Continue readingWhy AI Needs a Reality Check
Visionary Elon Musk fears it. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking worried about it. Microsoft’s Bill Gates embraces it. Science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick wrote about androids having the capacity to dream because of it. At HIMSS …
Continue readingBelieving is Seeing
Data collection and its use surrounds us. Our mobile phones trace where we live, work, buy our groceries, and visit friends. Today’s trip to some online shopping sites shows me ads for puppies (my children …
Continue readingLatest Posts
COVID-19: Lessons from Smallpox
Although achieving herd immunity is critical to ending the pandemic, it makes sense to look at this task regionally, rather than by country or state.
Continue readingLet’s Be Careful Out There
We have two choices to crush this pandemic: 1) Vaccination of a large percentage of our population, and 2) Herd immunity. The responsibility of all of us in healthcare is to follow the science, share what we know with the public, and be careful in how we do so.
Continue readingIs it Safe to Reopen Schools?
Our country now faces the most significant public health crisis in more than a century. The COVID-19 virus has upended our lives and put all of us at risk for illness. As we approach the …
Continue readingFinal Two Phases on the Road to Recovery
In my first two articles on our road to recovery, I covered the first two phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. In them I shared my thoughts on how provider organizations could restart their service lines …
Continue readingPhase 2: Next Stop on Provider Road to Recovery
In Phase 2, businesses expand their services and modify their business practices (e.g., limited seating in restaurants). The COVID-19 disease incidence rate will plateau with a steady number of new cases reported daily. Although researchers are hard at work, we will not have a meaningful treatment or vaccine. As we enter Phase 2 of the pandemic, provider organizations should adjust to the changes in healthcare delivery to take advantage of the opportunities presented.
Continue readingWhen in Crisis Mode, Let Everyone Follow the Data
During normal times, managers often make decisions based on their knowledge and experience; analysis of data to varying degrees informs that decision-making process. Circumstances change at an easily manageable pace, errors in judgment can be corrected, and the impact of those poor choices is often insignificant. During a healthcare crisis, however, the cost of being wrong is exponential.
Continue reading