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Taking the Vitals of the Healthcare Industry: Clinical Data Mining

By IGI Global on Aug 11, 2010

With the healthcare industry becoming increasingly more competitive, there exists a need for medical institutions to improve both the efficiency and the quality of their services. In order to do so, it is important to investigate how statistical models can be used to study health outcomes. It is also important to investigate healthcare databases, which can be used to examine physician decisions and develop evidence-based treatment guidelines that optimize patient outcomes.

Two recent releases from IGI Global are ideal for teaching future healthcare professionals how to improve the efficiency and quality of their services. The first book is Cases on Health Outcomes and Clinical Data Mining: Studies and Frameworks, edited by Patricia Cerrito (University of Louisville, USA), which provides several case studies developed by faculty and graduates of the University of Louisville's PhD program in Applied and Industrial Mathematics. The program focuses on applications in industry and the study of health outcomes research using data mining techniques.

	"The collection of papers illustrates the importance of maintaining close contact between data mining practitioners and the medical community in order to keep a permanent dialogue in order to identify new opportunities for applications of existing data mining technologies." - Dr. Mehmed Kantardzic, Louisville, USA

The cases in this book use non-traditional, exploratory data analysis and data mining tools to examine health outcomes, finding patterns and trends in observational data. An advantage of using data mining techniques is that outcomes can be investigated at the patient level, rather than at the group level. Typically in regression, physicians look to patient type to determine those at high risk. Patients above a certain age represent one type. Patients who smoke represent another type. However, with data mining, physicians can examine and predict specific outcomes for a patient of a specific age who smokes 10 cigarettes a week, who drinks one glass of wine on weekends, and who is physically in good shape. The purpose of using data mining is to explore the data so that the information can be used to make critical decisions regarding patient treatment.

The second book is Clinical Data Mining for Physician Decision Making and Investigating Health Outcomes: Methods for Prediction and Analysis, edited by Patricia Cerrito (University of Louisville, USA) and John Cerrito (Kroger Pharmacy, USA), which demonstrates how concern for detail in datasets and the use of data mining techniques can extract important and meaningful knowledge from healthcare databases. Basic information on processing data with step-by-step instructions is provided, allowing readers to use their own data and follow the instructions to find meaningful results. Such knowledge can be used to improve patient care.

"It is our interest in writing this book to demonstrate how concern for details in datasets and the use of data mining techniques can extract important and meaningful knowledge from the data. We anticipate that this knowledge can be used to improve patient care." - Patricia Cerrito, University of Louisville, USA and John Cerrito, Kroger Pharmacy, USA

Both books are ideal for the next generation of data mining practitioners, as well as interested healthcare researchers who want to start working with available health outcomes databases, but who do not know how to get started. They are for researchers who may not have a lot of computing resources available and who will have to perform all needed analyses, but who lack many of the computing skills required to complete the project.

Teaching notes for cases included in Cases on Health Outcomes and Clinical Data Mining: Studies and Frameworks are available to those professors who decide to adopt the book for their college course. For more information regarding this particular case book, please visit www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=37267. Our entire Teaching Case Collection can be found at www.igi-global.com/Cases.

The cases included in Cases on Health Outcomes and Clinical Data Mining: Studies and Frameworks can also be found in both our InfoSci-Cases Database and our InfoSci-Books Database . To learn more about either of these, please visit
www.igi-global.com/EResources/InfoSciCases/LearnMore/Overview and www.igi-global.com/EResources/InfoSciBooks, respectively.

To learn more about Clinical Data Mining for Physician Decision Making and Investigating Health Outcomes: Methods for Prediction and Analysis, please visit www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=37332.

Order now through your preferred distributor or directly from IGI Global Customer Service at cust@igi-global.com or 717-533-8845 ext. 100.

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