Lower costs

So the goal is better health outcomes, right? Unfortunately, we can't provide 24-7 medical care to everyone all the time, because our economy would break down. We can't order whole-body x-rays to detect every cancer in advance. There is a careful balance between achieving better outcomes and decreasing costs in healthcare. The idea with healthcare analytics is that we will be able to do more with less expensive techniques. A CT scan of the chest to screen for lung cancer may cost thousands of dollars; however, doing mathematical calculations on a patient's medical history to screen for lung cancer costs much less. In this book, the plan is to show you how to make those calculations.