ABSTRACT
The primary initiative in leveraging the value of data resources lies in the realm of analytics. This term, however, encompasses a wide variety of methodologies that can provide descriptive, comparative, and predictive information for the end user. This chapter provides a brief background and description of some noteworthy analytic approaches as applied to more historical, structured data and includes references to big data issues along the way. It provides an overview of some of the aforementioned business intelligence-based analytic methods and includes some basic examples pertaining to healthcare. Often the level of analytics is filtered down to a few insightful reports, ongoing insights absorbed in the marketplace, and the access to real-time dashboards that display key performance indicators relevant to a particular process. These dashboards are designed to provide decision makers with a feedback mechanism as to how an organization is performing closer to real time.
