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Better Living Through Algorithms: Health Care Contest Looks to Data Miners for Solutions
WSJ Blogs, By Tom Loftus, Sep 23, 2011
A colleague describes Dr. Randy Axelrod as "80% doctor, 20% quant." In high school he took college-level math courses. During his residency, he used his free time studying database programming. As a medical doctor he has worked ER, but he has also run models analyzing patient risk prediction.
Today Axelrod is competing in a
contest
that one could say was custom made for him. In April Heritage Provider Network, a California physicians group that contracts with a over 32,000 physicians and 100 hospitals, launched a competition offering $3 million to the entrant or team that built the best algorithm to predict and prevent unnecessary hospitalizations. Kaggle, a start-up profiled earlier by the WSJ, is handling contest logistics.
... In addition to the $3 million grand prize, the contest rewards six milestone prizes, totaling $230,000, to the entrant with the best prediction algorithm-as based on degree of accuracy-at the time of judging. Today Axelrod, along with teammates David Vogel and Phil Brierley won the first milestone.
Read more.
You can also watch the HHP milestone award ceremony presented at O'Reilly Strata Conference, Sep 2011.