If anyone knows how to finesse insight out of data, it’s Bart Baesens, professor at KU Leuven (Belgium), and a lecturer at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom). Not only has he written a book about it, Analytics in a Big Data World: The Essential Guide to Data Science and […]
Analyzing wait times at VA health care facilities
Data about the monthly wait times at VA facilities in the US are now available, but it’s a bit overwhelming to try to analyze them in tabular form – plotting the data on a map made it a lot easier!… Here in the US, when our soldiers finish their commitment in […]
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SAS Newbie Warren Woermke Guest Posts: Taking the Pulse of the SAS Health User Group
My name is Warren Woermke, and I’m a coop student working in customer loyalty at SAS Canada. I’m on my second work term, and have been here for about 8 months now. Last week I ‘ran’ the Health User Group (my first ever) here at the SAS Toronto office, and gave my first presentation. To say I was nervous would be an understatement…though with almost 40 customers, and my manager in attendance, I would argue with good reason!
However, the good people of the Health User Group soon showed me there was no reason to be. I could not have asked for a friendlier, more receptive and welcoming group of people with which to conduct my first user group. Despite my lack of experience and, if I’m honest, technical knowledge, I did not feel at all unwelcome or alienated from the group. Some people were even kind enough to laugh at my not-so-funny jokes! (I promise to have some better lines prepared for next time). I need to say a special thanks to the HUG President, Christopher Battiston. The meeting ran extremely smoothly – in large part thanks to Chris. Not only did he make me feel welcome, he made my life easy by handling registration, introducing me to presenters, and answering one or two questions that were a little beyond me J.
The quality of the people at this meeting was only rivaled by the quality of the content. We were treated by three excellent guest presenters – Petros Pechlivanoglou from Toronto Health Economics & Technology Assessment (THETA) Collaborative, Ruth Croxford from Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), and SAS’ own Lorne Rothman. Petros provided us with an insightful look into the world of health economics – a
presentationwhich I felt had an excellent balance of technical insight, and less technical aspects for folks like me. Though it may have been old news to some, I was introduced to the concept of units of QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life Year), which measure a treatment not only on its ability to prolong life, but also on the quality of that life. Very cool. Ruth gave an interesting talk on inverse probability of treatment weighting using propensity scoring. Lorne gave us a look at predictive modeling in healthcare and put forth a challenging question to the group, ‘Why does healthcare rarely use it?’ During amateur hour this kid named Warren also did a quick update from SAS – but it was pretty poorly done, so there’s no need to go further into that.All in all, this was an excellent experience – and one I’d love to repeat.
How to convert a Unix datetime to a SAS datetime
I watched with wonder as each of my daughters learned how to “tell time.” Early in their primary school careers, they brought home worksheets that featured clock faces with big-hand/little-hand configurations that they had to decipher, and exercises that asked them to draw the hands as they should appear given […]
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This is not just another pretty face
Sometimes you just need a new pair of shoes or a brand new hat. Something so small can add a pep to your step and allow you to see new opportunities in the same old places. Don’t believe me? Try it. We did and I can’t wait for you to […]
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A custom map to help track the flu
Has this year’s flu been better or worse than you thought it would be? There are a lot of factors that help determine whether or not you’re likely to get the flu. Is there a bad strain going around? Did the flu vaccine target the right strain? Did you get […]
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