Visualizing Health and Healthcare Data

Preface

We understand the challenges you face when trying to communicate health and healthcare data. We wrote this book to share our deep experience and expertise in creating clear, compelling, and actionable displays of health and healthcare data that empower people to “see how they're doing.”

As a group, we've spent the last 30 years working on this book—29 conducting the research, and one writing it. Our research can be categorized into three areas: formal education, work experience, and self-education.

We've each had the privilege of a formal education delivered by recognized health and healthcare experts and thought leaders. This education is foundational to our ability to think critically about the various aspects of what health is, how health and healthcare systems operate, and the structures and policies that influence it all.

We've played a role in the development, capture, and analysis of just about every type of health and healthcare data imaginable—from administrative claims data to risk-adjusted clinical outcomes data to complex public health survey data. We've deciphered the inner workings of innumerable transactional systems and untangled databases created by evil geniuses.

Each of us can describe the moment we were bitten by the data visualization bug and set on a path of self-education. We sought out thought leaders in the field—some we know only through their books and blogs; others we have developed lifelong professional and personal friendships with. We ...