Healthcare market segmentation and data mining: A systematic review.

Providing insight into healthcare consumers' behaviors and attitudes is critical information in an environment where healthcare delivery is moving rapidly towards patient-centered care that is premised upon individuals becoming more active participants in managing their health. A systematic review of the literature concerning healthcare market segmentation and data mining identified several areas for future health marketing research. Common themes included: (a) reliance on survey data, (b) clustering methods, (c) limited classification modeling after clustering, and (d) detailed analysis of clusters by demographic data.

Reducing cost drivers in total joint arthroplasty: understanding patient readmission risk and supply cost.

Understanding and planning for the factors that impact supply cost and unplanned readmission risk for total joint arthroplasty (TJA) patients is helpful for hospitals at financial risk under bundled payments. Readmission and operating room supply costs are two of the biggest expenses. Logistic and linear regressions are used to measure the impacts of TJA patient attributes on readmission risk and supply costs, respectively.

Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of an Early Detection of Parkinson's Disease through Innovative Technology.

Early detection of Parkinson's Disease (PD) is critically important as it can increase patient quality of life and save treatment cost. An innovative approach for early detection of PD is to use non-wearable sensors that are capable of capturing skeletal joint data. This paper evaluates the cost-effectiveness of this sensor-based intervention considering the quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and the associated costs.

The Impact of a Pay-for-Performance Program on Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infections in Pennsylvania.

Healthcare associated infections have significantly contributed to the rising cost of hospital care in the United States. The implementation of pay-for-performance (P4P) programs has been one approach to improve quality at a reduced cost. We quantify the impact of Highmark's Quality Blue (QB) hospital P4P program on central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) in Pennsylvania.

Machine learning classification of medication adherence in patients with movement disorders using non-wearable sensors.

Medication non-adherence is a major concern in the healthcare industry and has led to increases in health risks and medical costs. For many neurological diseases, adherence to medication regimens can be assessed by observing movement patterns. However, physician observations are typically assessed based on visual inspection of movement and are limited to clinical testing procedures.

A data mining methodology for predicting early stage Parkinson's disease using non-invasive, high-dimensional gait sensor data.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurological disorder after Alzheimer's disease. Key clinical features of PD are motor-related and are typically assessed by healthcare providers based on qualitative visual inspection of a patient's movement/gait/posture. More advanced diagnostic techniques such as computed tomography scans that measure brain function, can be cost prohibitive and may expose patients to radiation and other harmful effects.

Quantifying complexity in translational research: an integrated approach.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to quantify complexity in translational research. The impact of major operational steps and technical requirements is calculated with respect to their ability to accelerate moving new discoveries into clinical practice.

Design/methodology/approach: A three-phase integrated quality function deployment (QFD) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to quantify complexity in translational research.

Patient flow in the emergency department: a classification and analysis of admission process policies.

Study Objective: We investigate the effect of admission process policies on patient flow in the emergency department (ED).

Methods: We surveyed an advisory panel group to determine approaches to admission process policies and classified them as admission decision is made by the team of providers (attending physicians, residents, physician extenders) (type 1) or attending physicians (type 2) on the admitting service, team of providers (type 3), or attending physicians (type 4) in the ED. We developed discrete-event simulation models of patient flow to evaluate the potential effect of the 4 basic policy types and 2 hybrid types, referred to as triage attending physician consultation and remote collaborative consultation on key performance measures.

Interdigitated silver-polymer-based antibacterial surface system activated by oligodynamic iontophoresis - an empirical characterization study.

There is a pressing need to control the occurrences of nosocomial infections due to their detrimental effects on patient well-being and the rising treatment costs. To prevent the contact transmission of such infections via health-critical surfaces, a prophylactic surface system that consists of an interdigitated array of oppositely charged silver electrodes with polymer separations and utilizes oligodynamic iontophoresis has been recently developed. This paper presents a systematic study that empirically characterizes the effects of the surface system parameters on its antibacterial efficacy, and validates the system's effectiveness.

A silent response to the obesity epidemic: decline in US physician weight counseling.

Background: Guidelines recommend that physicians screen all adults for obesity and offer an intensive counseling and behavioral interventions for weight loss for obese adults. Current trends of weight-related counseling are unknown in the setting of the US obesity epidemic.

Objectives: To describe primary care physician (PCP) weight-related counseling, comparing counseling rates in 1995-1996 and 2007-2008.

Yield improvement for lost mould rapid infiltration forming process by a multistage fractional factorial split plot design.

Statistical design of experiments is widely used among scientists and engineers to understand influential factors in a laboratory or manufacturing process. One of the underlying principles of using the statistical design of experiments method is randomisation, each run of experimental settings will be determined completely unsystematically. In practice, especially in a complicated process that consists of multiple stages, randomisation may pose too high a burden on time and cost.