Visualizing Health and Healthcare Data

Preface xiii
 
Section I Establishing a Framework and Process 1
 
Chapter 1 Health and Healthcare Data Visualizations of Historical Importance 3
 
Chapter 2 Stop Hunting Unicorns and Start Building Teams and Know The Data 9
 
Search for Characteristics and Core Competencies 10
 
Get to Know the Data 11
 
Classifications, Intent, Purpose, and Lineage 12
 
Two Types of Data 14
 
Qualitative/Categorical Data 14
 
Quantitative/Numerical Data 14
 
Scales/Levels of Measure 15
 
Nominal 15
 
Ordinal 16
 
Interval 17
 
Ratio 18
 
Summary 19
 
Chapter 3 Requirements-Gathering and Design Methods 21
 
Design Thinking Foundational Concepts 22
 
Design Methods 23
 
Contextual Inquiry 23
 
Mental Models 24
 
Personas 26
 
Persona Creation Guide 27
 
Graphic Organizers 29
 
Guided Analytics Framework 29
 
Summary Overview Dashboard 30
 
Supporting Focused Reports 30
 
Details 31
 
Multidimensional Exploratory Displays (MEDs(TM)) 31
 
Sketching 32
 
Prototyping 33
 
Testing 34
 
Summary 36
 
Section II Perceiving the Best Practices of Data Visualization 37
 
Chapter 4 The Research 39
 
Research Informs Data Visualization Best Practices 39
 
Preattentive Attributes 41
 
Preattentive Attributes at Work 43
 
Gestalt Principles 46
 
Color Theory 48
 
The Power of White Space 53
 
Where People Look 54
 
Summary 54
 
Chapter 5 Table Design Checklist 55
 
Fundamentals of Table Design 55
 
Organization/Categorization 55
 
Non-Data Ink 56
 
Fonts 56
 
Number Alignment and Formatting 56
 
Labels 58
 
Summary 58
 
Chapter 6 Powerful Visualizations in Four Shapes 59
 
Bars, Lines, Points, and Boxes 59
 
Shape One: Bars

Kathy Rowell is a nationally recognized health, healthcare, and data visualization expert, lecturer, and author specializing in helping leading organizations analyze, design, and present visual displays of data to inform their decisions and stimulate effective action. She is the co-author of the Best Boring Book Ever (BBBE) of Healthcare Classification Systems and Databases, and BBBE of Tableau for Healthcare Professionals, which are used by numerous colleges and universities and professional organizations to teach and train students and professionals.
Kathy is the Co-founder and Principal of HealthDataViz (HDV) where she has led innovative and ground-breaking projects and data visualization training initiatives for leading organizations such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Children's Hospital Association. A graduate of the University of NH and Dartmouth Medical School, Kathy lives in Maine and loves being on the water and cruising the coast with her family on their boat "Visualize."
 
With seven years wholly immersed in healthcare data visualization, following ten years as a licensed marriage and family therapist, Lindsay brings a wealth of direct care experience and an unbridled passion and nationally recognized expertise for visualizing health and healthcare data. A Tableau Zen Master and member of the HealthDataViz (HDV) team, Lindsay is an enthusiastic creator of effective, intuitive, and beautiful dashboards that people love to use and make the story and opportunities buried in the data clear. Her passion for health and healthcare data knows no bounds evidenced by her establishment of #ProjectHealthViz, a community of passionate data visualizers that create displays of health and healthcare data each month to tell our health stories.
Lindsay has a B.A. from Bucknell University and an M.A. from the University of Connecticut. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two