*************************************** Research Workshop in Applied Statistics *************************************** Join us this Wednesday (April 14) at noon, at CBRSS, the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, 34 Kirkland Street, Room 22, for Statistical Models for Health Care Quality Surveillance and Public Reporting Sharon-Lise T. Normand Professor of Health Care Policy (Biostatistics) Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health Monitoring health care quality involves collection of medical data in order to identify trends and disparities in medical care delivery. In the absence of randomization, detailed medical record data have often served as the gold-standard for balancing the distribution of observations (e.g., patients) across units (e.g., states). Administrative claims data are a cheaper alternative to medical record data but have been criticized as too coarse. The question is how valid are the administrative data for monitoring health care quality. To answer this, we consider an analysis of I units, each of which involves an adjusted outcome. In the ith unit, we denote the true association between the outcome and the risk factors using the medical chart data by theta_i(X), the true association between the outcome and the risk factors using administrative data by gamma_i(Z), and assume we have estimates of each available. Within unit i, the estimated association parameters are jointly normally distributed such that conditional on gamma_i(Z), a simple linear relationship exists between theta_i(X) and gamma_i(Z). We illustrate methods to examine the value of administrative data for monitoring state-specific 30-day mortality rates after a heart attack. Preliminary results for monitoring hospital-specific rates will also be discussed. Key Words: Bayesian inference; hierarchical model; surrogacy; acute myocardial infarction; quality of care; surveillance. As always, lunch will be provided. Contact information, the current schedule, and previous presentations may be found at the course web site: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov3009/ ****************************************** The Research Workshop in Applied Statistics is a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss work in progress and exchange ideas. It is intended as a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different disciplines such as economics, epidemiology, medicine, political science, psychology, public policy, public health, sociology and statistics. The topics of papers presented in previous years included missing data, survey analysis, Bayesian simulation, sample selection, and models for election and portfolio choice. Faculty and student participants in the workshop present their current projects, and guest speakers also give occasional presentations. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for informal interaction between graduate students and faculty from a variety of disciplines. Course credit is available for students as either an upper-level Government or Sociology class. Lunch is provided. If you are interested, note that all events are held at noon, in Room 22, Center for Basic Research in Social Sciences (CBRSS, 34 Kirkland St., this is the yellow building across the street from William James Hall). Contact information and previous presentations may be found at the course web site: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov3009/ To join the gov3009 mailing list, send e-mail to gov3009-l-request(a)fas.harvard.edu with the following text message: subscribe end