Analytics in Healthcare and the Life Sciences: Strategies, Implementation Methods, and Best Practices

Foreword

What’s more important to healthcare than analytics? We can use this powerful resource to determine what treatments are most likely to be effective, which care practices are worth the cost, which patients deserve special attention, and which of those patients are likely not to take their medications. In a country—and to a lesser degree, a world—in which we spend too much on healthcare and get too little in return, analytics can help to restore a balance between cost and value. And given all the possible things that we can do with analytics, what could be more important than improving the healthcare of human populations?

For better or worse, however, healthcare is behind other industry sectors in terms of its analytical sophistication. ...