Building your disease management vocabulary
The next phase in the evolution of disease management programs requires that you add a few key definitions to your vocabulary, according to Mark H.T. Ridinger, MD, president and chief medical officer for Axonal Health Solutions in Washington, DC, and Jeffery J. Rice, chief executive officer in Axonal’s Dallas office. Those definitions include:
• Data mining.
Data mining is a software-based process that uses artificial intelligence to find previously unknown patterns in large databases and uses that information to build predictive models.
• Neural networks.
Neural networks are a type of artificial intelligence that health care organizations can use to pinpoint and track patients who are moving up a risk scale. Neural networks use empirical reasoning rather than rules-based logic to uncover relationships between medical factors and disease.
• Predictive modeling.
Predictive modeling is the process of analyzing current data to prospectively identify defined outcomes. In disease management, the data for predictive models is derived from claims data, pharmaceutical data, survey data and clinical data. The predicted outcomes are selected to identify patients at high risk for defined events such as emergency room visits, hospital admissions, complications of disease or death. Predic tive modeling is a mathematical representation of reality that creates a statistical link between data available today and the prediction of an event tomorrow.
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