Predictive Analytics in

Health Care (MSA 8750-E)

Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Abhay Nath Mishra

Email: [email protected] (the best and quickest way to reach me)
Office: Room No. 809, Robinson College of Business
Address: Institute of Health Administration, 35 Broad Street, Suite 805, Atlanta GA 30303.
Phone: (404) 413-7638
Office Hrs: By appointment

Class Schedule: TBD

Day of the week; time; classroom location

Prerequisites:

Three core courses in analytics: MSA 8000, MSA 8050 and MSA 8200

Course Description

The health care industry is one of the largest producers of raw data in the United States.
Advances in information gathering methods, increasing standardization and the widespread use
of information technologies among health care providers, payers and consumers are further
fueling the size and variety of datasets collected. Current regulations and business requirements
will continue to push health care organizations to collect and analyze even more data. With the
current availability and further creation of a large amount of raw data at different levels (e.g.,
patient, facility, hospital, health system, physician, disease condition, etc.) and of different
variety (structured and unstructured), health care organizations need tools that allow them to
effectively sift through these enormous datasets and extract actionable information and
knowledge to make smart businesses decisions. It is essential in this context to understand how
to model, using advanced analytical methods, complex business problems faced by the
healthcare industry and to solve these problems using available data. Furthermore, it is vitally
important to use advanced analytical techniques to make reasoned predictions about future
events and to take preemptive actions.

Predictive modeling is the process of developing models to better predict future outcomes for an
event of interest by exploring its relationships with explanatory variables from historical data. A
large number of methods with roots in statistics, informational retrieval and econometrics have
been developed to extract knowledge from large data sets. These methods can be applied
successfully in diverse areas, such as health care market basket analysis, churn analysis for
hospitals and insurance companies, health insurance fraud detection, readmission assessment,
personalization of treatment regimen, patient risk management and performance-based payment
analysis. The course introduces the techniques of predictive modeling and analytics in a data‐rich
health care business environment. It covers the process of formulating business objectives, data
selection, preparation, and partition to successfully design, build, evaluate and implement
predictive models for a variety of health care applications. Predictive modeling tools such as
classification and decision trees, neural networks, regressions, association analysis, cluster
analysis, etc. will be discussed in detail and applied to practical health care problems.

The focus of this course will be on the rigor of the analytical techniques, as also their
implementation. Students will be expected to have a background in statistical and quantitative
approaches. We will also spend time on the interpretation of results, but the focus will clearly be
on the application of tools and techniques. In other words, the course will focus more on the
creation and less on the consumption of analytics.

Course Objectives:

 Use retrieval and manipulation tools for health information extraction and reporting
 Describe different methods of predictive analytics and their application in health care
 Rigorously apply analytics techniques on healthcare problems
 Be proficient with analytics software for health care data preparation and analysis
 Apply predictive analytics tools to make better operational, financial and clinical
decisions
 Create analytics for the consumption of top-level managers

Course Materials:

Required text:
Data Mining for Business Intelligence, 2nd Edition, by Galit Shmueli, Nitin R. Patel, and
Peter C. Bruce (Wiley: 2010). (New copy comes with a valid license to XLMiner.)
ISBN-10: 0470526823; ISBN-13: 978-0470526828

Data-Driven Healthcare: How Analytics and BI are Transforming the Industry, 1st
Edition, by Laura B. Madsen (Wiles and SAS Business Series: 2014). ISBN-
10: 1118772210; ISBN-13: 978-1118772218

The texts will be supplemented with additional readings. Readings will be posted on
Desire2Learn. Students are also encouraged to follow interesting developments in health
analytics and report them in the class.

The instructor will provide the HCUP and AHA datasets on which the course will be based.

Course Conduct and Policies:

This course uses a blend of lecture/discussion and assignments. It is absolutely essential for you
to come fully prepared to the class. All assignments are due at the beginning of the class. We
will not take attendance, but we expect you to be present in every class. Absenteeism or lack of
preparation will adversely affect your grade. If you must miss a class, let us know as soon as
possible. As a sign of courtesy to us and your fellow classmates, please don’t browse the web,
check your email or facebook or twitter, or use your cell phone in any non-academic manner
while you are in the class. Finally, follow the policies related to academic integrity (more on
that later!).

Grading:

Your final grade in this class will depend on four components. The distribution is as follows:

Group Project 30 % (group effort)

Group Assignments (5) 20 % (group effort)
Exams (2) 50 % (individual effort)

Group Assignments

Students will be expected to complete 5 homework assignments over the course of the semester .
These assignments are designed to reinforce your understanding of the topics covered.
Assignments must be turned in at the beginning of or before the class period of the due date. No
late work is accepted. The instructor will create groups of 2-3 students. Each group is expected to
complete assignments independently. Assignments should be submitted via email at
[email protected] to Professor Mishra. Additionally, you are required to bring a printed copy of
the assignment to the class.

Group Project

The purpose of the group project is to encourage students to apply (and expand on) their learning
in the class in an area that is of special interest to them. I strongly suggest you begin working on
this project from the first week and delegate tasks amongst your group members in an efficient
manner. The students will leverage the two datasets – HCUP and AHA – and provide data-driven
insights based on the tools we cover in the class. These analyses conducted and insights should
build on those we cover during the regular class. It is important that students be deeply immersed
in the two datasets mentioned above, and potentially other datasets, and learn how to combine
different datasets and analyze them using analytics tools.

Submit your paper via email at [email protected] to Professor Mishra. Additionally, you are
required to bring a printed copy of the paper to the class.

Exam and Exam Policies:

There will be two exams. The exams will cover the materials discussed in the course.

1. You are not allowed to discuss the exams with anyone. You (and your collaborator if
he/she is a fellow student) will receive a score of 0 if any infraction is noticed and
established. In addition, other actions may also be taken.
2. Exam missed due to an excused absence must be made up within one week of returning
to class for full credit or no credit will be given. Exam missed due to an unexcused
 absence may not be made up. Documentation proving the excused absence may be
required at the time the exam is made up.
3. The first exam will be held in the class. The second exam will be held during the exam
week. Submit your exam electronically at [email protected] to Professor Mishra. Exams
will be based on datasets that students will have worked on before.

Academic Dishonesty Policy

Cheating on an examination or assignment, or assisting another student in cheating, is not

permissible. You may not discuss exam questions or case write-up issues with anyone. If you
have any questions, please see the instructor. Further, students are expected to abide by the
Georgia State University code.
On each exam or assignment you will be asked to write out and sign the following pledge.
"I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this
exam/assignment."

Special Needs

If you have a disability and/or special needs, you should bring this to my attention as soon as
possible, but not later than the second week of class.

Course Feedback

Your constructive assessment of this course plays an indispensable role in shaping education at
Georgia State. Upon completing the course, please take the time to fill out the online course
evaluation.

Final Grades

Georgia State University has implemented a plus and minus grading method. The suggested cut-
offs for various grades are:
 96-100 = A+; 93-95 = A; 90-92 = A-; 87-89 = B+; 83-86 = B
 80-82 = B-; 77-79 = C+; 73-76 = C; 70-72 = C-; 60-69 = D
 <60 = F

The instructor reserves the right to modify these cut-offs.

 Tentative Class Schedule (adjustments may be necessary)

Date Topic Reading Assignment

Due
Class 1 Introduction to Predictive Modeling in Competing on
Health Care, Software Setup Analytics;
Chapters 1,2 from
SPB and Chapter
1 from M.
Class 2 Health Care Data Extraction and Online reading
Manipulation, SQL, Relational data model material + notes
and RDBMS
Class 3 Data Extraction and Manipulation of Online reading
Unstructured Health Care Data material + notes
Class 4 OLAP and Multidimensional Analysis An Introduction Assignment 1
Data Quality to OLAP
Summarization and Data cubes Multidimensional
Terminology and
Technology;
Chapters 3 and 4
from M
Class 5 Data Exploration, Visualization and Chapters 3, 4
Dimension Reduction from SPB;
Chapter 7 from M
Class 6 Association and Health Market-based Chapter 13 from Assignment 2
analysis SPB;
Class 7 Cluster Analysis Chapter 14 from
SPB;
Class 8 Classification and Predictive Modeling Chapters 5, 9 Assignment 3
from SPB;
Class 9 Predictive Modeling using Regression Chapters 6 and 10
from SPB;
Class 10 Predictive Modeling using Naïve Bayes Chapters 8 and 9 Assignment 4
and Regression Trees from SPB;
Class 11 Time Series and Smoothing Chapters 15 and
17 from SPB;
Class 12 Predictive Modeling of Disease Trends Chapter 11 from
using Neural Networks SPB;
Class 13 Text Mining in Health Care Online reading Assignment 5
material + notes
Class 14 Project Presentation
Project report due (3 days after the last class day)
Take-home Final Exam (during the final exam time)
All the best!!