World Series Analytics

One knows much, much more about the performance of a baseball player, who entertains us, than about our physician, who directs our care that can mean the difference between life and death.  In my book A Framework for Applying Analytics in Healthcare:  What Can Be Learned from the Best Practices in Retail, Banking, Politics, and Sports, I address this paradox and conclude with a counter-intuitive idea. 

On the one hand there is a mesmerizing array of performance data on athletes.  It is used for recruiting athletes, but mostly it is for entertainment.  Because of the abundance of data, choosing a baseball player is so much easier than choosing a physician. When you go to a health plan or medical group Web site to choose a doctor, the information provided is comically bereft of relevant detail. One can learn about the medical school attended, specialty, languages spoken, gender, and office address, but absolutely nothing on the performance of doctors...not even how many times the doctor has been at bat, never mind whether the doctor is a champion in his or her field.

The information on doctor performance is collected but it is not made available to the public.  Same with teachers.  There is a tremendous reluctance to hold teachers and doctors accountable for outcomes for many reasons.

But, healthcare might have it right and can teach sports something to improve its industry. Healthcare, like sports, should be considered a team sport, and measurement and management should be directed accordingly. Putting the metrics on the team’s performance rather than individual actors might lead to better coordination, efficiency, and outcomes in healthcare...and in sports. And sports team management is beginning to realize that as well. Although sports generates a lot of data and it appears to know a lot about data on the surface and in TV commentary, its use of advanced analytics to improve the competitiveness of the teams and to produce value for the business is in its infancy…just like in healthcare.