Modeling Methods – Reward Health

Decision Analysis

U of Michigan study: Epic’s sepsis predictive model has “poor performance” due to low AUC, but reporting AUC is like building a bridge half way over a river. How to finish the job.

The Epic Sepsis Model (ESM) is a widely used proprietary predictive model that was described as having poor performance in a validation paper by Wong et al, citing low area under the ROC curve (AUC). But the evaluation failed to specify the intended protocol in which the ESM was intended to be used, and failed to include estimates of the outcomes of that protocol compared to usual care.

Dr. Ward August 29, 2021 7 Comments

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)

What is missing from the CMS Innovation Center five year vision?

The Biden administration’s CMS Innovation Center 5-year vision conspicuously lacks mention of what I consider to be necessary course corrections to reverse a disappointing first decade.

Dr. Ward August 18, 2021 1 Comment

Agent-based Models

The Post-COVID Wave and advice for business leaders navigating the pandemic and beyond: Dr. Ward interviewed by Gurmeet Judge, CEO of Encompass Business Technologies

Dr. Ward shares insights in an interview conducted by Gurmeet Judge, CEO of Encompass Business Techologies, an IT services company based in Vaughan, Ontario (suburb of Toronto) for the Encompass Blog. The hour long interview covers a wide range of topics of interest to leaders of both health care and non-health care organizations as they navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare to deal with the post-pandemic world, including the expected post-Covid wave in business and clinical activity, leadership strategies to build trust, talent and agility, and applying pandemic-style simulation analytics to business decisions.

Dr. Ward February 17, 2021 No Comments

Clinical Practice Guidelines and Protocols

Defensible COVID-19 vaccine prioritization policy will require bravery and explicit principles and analytics. We offer example principles and propose a 6-step process.

For almost a year, the weary public has been receiving a confusing mix of information and misinformation and witnessing an inconsistent and sometimes incoherent policy-making

Dr. Ward December 7, 2020 No Comments

COVID-19

University of Illinois is using campus-level COVID model, mandatory frequent saliva testing, an army of contact tracers and dynamic policy to keep the campus safe

In a recent article in Nature, the COVID19 response for the University of Illinois at Urbana campus was detailed. Although a spike in cases reported

Dr. Ward September 15, 2020 No Comments

Agent-based Models

Introducing the Harm Index Minimization Strategy for COVID-19 pandemic response: Better than Flatten the Curve, Crush the Curve and Hammer and Dance strategies

In my last post, I described three helpful analogies — Forest Fire, Genie in the Bottle, and Trucker in the Mountains — that make it

Dr. Ward September 2, 2020 4 Comments

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)

If repealing Obamacare is off the table, can we turn attention to improving it through cost-effective clinical protocols?

Paul Krugman recently wrote an article in the New York Times posing the question: if repealing Obamacare is off the table (for now), should people

Dr. Ward August 7, 2017 No Comments

ACO Reimbursement and Gain Sharing

New HIT ROI lit review is a methodologic tour de force, but misses the point

Recently, Jesdeep Bassi and Francis Lau of the University of Victoria (British Columbia) published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) another in

Dr. Ward February 23, 2013 No Comments

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA)

Conceptualizing “over-treatment” waste: Don’t deny health economics

A Health Policy Brief published in Health Affairs on December 13, 2012 referenced an analysis published last April in JAMA regarding waste in health care.

Dr. Ward December 23, 2012 No Comments

ACO Culture

To resolve conflicts, re-frame polar positions as optimization between undesirable extremes. But, sometimes there is no way to win.

In politics and professional life, achieving success requires the ability to resolve conflicts. I’ve noticed that conflicts often become entrenched because the opposing parties both

Dr. Ward February 18, 2012 3 Comments