Reality Check and Checkup for the Healthcare Industry

Despite all the political noise to the contrary, healthcare – the most basic of human needs – is the No. 1 concern of U.S. voters, significantly ahead of the economy, immigration, education, the environment and any other cause celebre du jour (pardon my French), according to a May 15 poll by RealClear Opinion Research. With that in mind, the healthcare industry, specifically healthcare analytics, has long been a topic of concern (and commentary) for Analytics magazine, and the July/August issue is no exception.

In his cover story, Gevik Nalbandian, vice president of software engineering at NextGate, examines “Why Poor Data Quality is Holding Back Healthcare.” The bad news: Half of healthcare CIOs lack confidence in their data, according to a survey. The good news: Three-quarters of the respondents plan to invest more heavily to improve quality and accessibility.

The issue also includes a preview of the 2019 INFORMS Healthcare Conference co-hosted by the MIT Sloan School of Management and Massachusetts General Hospital. Set for July 27-29 in the Boston area, the conference theme, “Transforming Health with Data, Mind and Hand,” highlights the potential joint impact of analytics, academia and practice.

Rajib Ghosh, whose Healthcare Analytics column chronicles the advances, setbacks, economics and politics of the industry, provides a mid-year checkup on the state of healthcare technology in “Mid-year Review of the Healthcare Industry.” As always when you inject politics into the picture, the checkup is anything but routine.

While healthcare might be the No. 1 issue among U.S. voters, it’s not the only topic on the minds of the analytics community. So, in addition to the extensive coverage of healthcare analytics mentioned above, the July/August issue of Analytics magazine includes a wealth of other content, starting with Victor Lo’s feature story on a topic almost all organizations are concerned with: finding data science talent. In “Searching for the Perfect Unicorn,” Lo outlines how to find the data scientist with the right skill set to meet a particular company’s needs.

Other features include “Machine Learning, AI Pump New Energy into the Oil and Gas Industry” by Vinodkumar Raghothamarao and “Data Storytelling: Transforming Data into Decisions” by Naveen Gattu. Analyze This! columnist Vijay Mehrotra tells the story of reuniting with a classmate 30 years later and how they taught each other valuable lessons inside and outside the world of technology in “Different Career Paths Reach Common Ground.”

You’ll find all of that and more in the July/August issue of Analytics magazine.