Using Predictive Analytics to Improve Healthcare Outcomes Winner of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) Informatics Book of the Year Award 2021! Discover a comprehensive overview, from established leaders in the field, of how to use predictive analytics and other analytic methods for healthcare quality improvement. Using Predictive Analytics to Improve Healthcare Outcomes delivers a 16-step process to use predictive analytics to improve operations in the complex industry of healthcare. The book includes numerous case studies that make use of predictive analytics and other mathematical methodologies to save money and improve patient outcomes. The book is organized as a "how-to" manual, showing how to use existing theory and tools to achieve desired positive outcomes. You will learn how your organization can use predictive analytics to identify the most impactful operational interventions before changing operations. This includes: A thorough introduction to data, caring theory, Relationship-Based Care(R), the Caring Behaviors Assurance System(c), and healthcare operations, including how to build a measurement model and improve organizational outcomes. An exploration of analytics in action, including comprehensive case studies on patient falls, palliative care, infection reduction, reducing rates of readmission for heart failure, and more--all resulting in action plans allowing clinicians to make changes that have been proven in advance to result in positive outcomes. Discussions of how to refine quality improvement initiatives, including the use of "comfort" as a construct to illustrate the importance of solid theory and good measurement in adequate pain management. An examination of international organizations using analytics to improve operations within cultural context. Using Predictive Analytics to Improve Healthcare Outcomes is perfect for executives, researchers, and quality improvement staff at healthcare organizations, as well as educators teaching mathematics, data science, or quality improvement. Employ this valuable resource that walks you through the steps of managing and optimizing outcomes in your clinical care operations.

Many people perceive the job of a chauffeur in L.A. as glamorous and exciting. As, Max, the jaded, somewhat misanthropic young man in these stories set in 1978 says, "They don't know s**t. ... Maybe it's different now, but I doubt it. When I did it, it was airport pick-ups and drop-offs, catnapping in LAX terminals or the front seat, hanging around the car-barn waiting for a ride, idling in underground garage gas-chambers at some awards show, enduring the boring old Gomers who want to tell you what it was like to drive Jack Dempsey or Betty Grable or some other corpse nobody remembers, and long nights in parking lots behind some restaurant, arena, or concert hall. Very glamorous." If you're looking for beginnings, middles, and ends, don't bother. A driver lives a life of starts and stops, episodes and vignettes, with very few happy endings. Take a ride through Los Angeles with Max in the days of posers, power-brokers, Peruvian "pep rallies," and big-hair bands. (Adult language)

Is it lucky or unlucky? Does it conjure tragic events or hilarious ones? Is it a superstitious fear or an obsessive compulsion? Could it be the 13th planet in a distant solar system, the length of a dog's life or the number of steps it takes to open a creaky door? Could it be the camera that sees into your soul, or the bottle that destroys it? Is it the number of minutes that remain before your fate is sealed or the name of the girl who first captured your heart? Is it the age of discovery or the moment when the ultimate question is answered? Just what is 13? 13 writers know the answer. The result is something quite remarkable and in this anthology, you'll be able to discover these 13 intriguing worlds for yourself.