ABSTRACT
Thethree-stepiterativeprocessofmodelspecification,modelfitting,and modelcheckingisrelevanttomostappliedstatisticalwork.Wedemonstratethesestepsusinghearttransplantmortalitydataandatwo-level Poissonmodel.Assumingthelevel-onemodeltobecorrectlyspecified, wefocusongraphicalandstatisticalmethodsforcheckingthestructural, level-two,model.Usingthethree-stepprocess,aviolationoftheexchangeabilityassumptionisnotedandacorrectionisproposed.Thiswork primarilyprovidesatutorialonthemodelingprocessforhierarchical models.Second,itprovidesinsightandastructuredprocessforspecifying andcheckingfuturemedicalprofilingmodelsfortransplantprograms whenmorecompletedatabecomeavailable.
