Grant: Operating Grant

Statistics is the science of collecting, examining, and interpreting information. Statistics forms the foundation of medical research. We will improve existing statistical tools and develop new statistical tools for use by medical researchers. Our research has three objectives. First, doctors want to improve the quality of medical care that they provide to patients. We will develop statistical tools that will allow doctors to compare the quality of care provided patients at different hospitals. We will also develop statistical tools to allow doctors to examine hospital performance on a set of different measures of quality of care. This will allow doctors to identify hospitals at which the quality of care needs to be improved. Second, researchers want to determine the effect of treatments on the health of patients. We will develop statistical tools that will help medical researchers to determine the effect of treatments on the health and quality of life of these patients. This will help doctors to select the best treatments for patients. Third, doctors are interested in predicting patient prognosis after a specific diagnosis or after undergoing surgery. We will develop statistical tools to improve the accuracy of these predictions. We will develop statistical tools using mathematical methods. We will then use these tools to analyze large datasets. One dataset will contain information on patients with heart attacks admitted to hospitals in Ontario. Another dataset will contain information on patients who were hospitalized with heart failure at hospitals in Ontario. We will also use large computer experiments to examine how well these statistical tools work. Our project is unique because it will strengthen the foundation on which medical research is built. Our project will provide improved research tools for use by medical researchers. We will provide these research tools to other medical researchers.