Healthcare example

• How is data analytics different from statistics?

• Analytics tools fall into 3 categories: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. What are the main differences between these categories?

• Explain how businesses use analytics to convert raw operational data into actionable information. Provide at least 1 example.

• Does healthcare organization use data analytics? If so, how is it used? If not, how could the organization use data analytics to improve its performance?

ANSWER

Healthcare Example

Data analytics differs from statistics in that while data analytics helps a researcher come up with a hypothesis and ask quality question about the research, statistics test the hypothesis and provides answers to questions rising from the research. Additionally data analytics employ the use of machine learning algorithms where there is no assumed null hypothesis. Analytics tools fall into three major categories, descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics is where historical data is collected, organised and presented in a method that would be easy to understand. Unlike other forms of analytics, descriptive analytics does not focus on making inferences or predictions from findings. Predictive analytics on the other hand is solely about predicting the future from understanding the current data. Lastly, prescriptive analytics follows from the two other types to offer scientists a way practical way forward. After understanding historical data from descriptive analytics and predicting the future from predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics recommends the most logical course of action.

Businesses use analytics to convert raw operational data into actionable information by first understanding the type of analytics to deal with then focusing on procedures that will be beneficial to a business and then putting the data into context. For example, using a product review system online where users assign stars to describe a product or service they just bought, a business can use analytics to find the exact safe points and improve on weaknesses. Data analytics can apply in a great way to healthcare where it has a lot of positive outcome and life-saving scenarios. For instance with the current COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing of individuals who have come across infected people has enables quarantine of the right people to reduce the rate of infection.

References

Zikopoulos, P., & Eaton, C. (2011). Understanding big data: Analytics for enterprise class hadoop and streaming data. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.