1. Briefly explain the differences between BI and DSS?

Business intelligence (BI) systems monitor situations and identify problems and/or
opportunities, using analytic methods. However, Decision Support Systems (DSS) are typically
built to support the solution of a certain problem or to evaluate an opportunity, already
identified. BI systems are not only for decision support but a very important feature they have
is: reporting. Thus, DSS directly supports specific decision making, however, BI provides timely
and accurate information that indirectly supports decision making.
All BI systems include four components: a data warehouse (source data), business analytics
(collections of tools for manipulating, mining and analyzing data), business performance
management (monitoring and analyzing performance) and a user interface (dashboards, digital
cockpits, etc.) However, a DSS may have its own database and thus are known as DSS
applications.
BI systems include tools for
querying and reporting, text and
data mining, digital cockpits,
dashboards and scorecards, alerts
and notifications, and many more
applications and features recently
developed and continuously being
added under this umbrella term. Certain DSS are also included in BI. The components of DSS
include a data management subsystem, model management subsystem, knowledge-based
management subsystem and user interface subsystem. Relationship between different types of
DSS and BI is represented in the figure shown above.
In essence, the process of BI is based on the transformation of data to information, then to
decision and finally into actions whereas DSS uses data to support decision making only. BI has
executive and strategy orientation and is more useful for business leaders whereas DSS is more
oriented towards analysts. This is because of the very nature of data visualization capabilities
that BI has. Business leaders do not analyze all available data personally but take decisions on
analysis done by middle management. To understand these analyses BI tools of visualization
come in handy. Sometimes, they would want to dig deeper into a particular problem and thus
scalable data mining capabilities embedded in BI systems facilitate detailed analysis of data. BI
systems are developed by commercially available tools, however, DSS needs higher
programming expertise to tailor make it for specific organization purposes and thus are
developed mostly in academic world. This is in contrast to BI systems which are typically
developed by software companies.

Reference:
http://dspace.upce.cz


2. Read the article Predictive Analytics Saving Lives and Lowering Medical Bills.
Summarize how it suggests predictive analytics can be used to save lives and lower
medical bills.

The problem: Medication prescription non-adherence among US citizens. This costs $290 billion
per year (avoidable costs) including medical, hospitalization and surgery costs.
Why predictive analytics: Most existing strategies are based on doctors observing negative
health consequences after patients have stopped taking their meds. By then it is too late. A
retrospective approach descriptive or prescriptive analytics does not work. This is why
predictive analytics can help address this issue.
How? By alerting doctors, pharmacists and health plans about patients who are most
vulnerable to non-adherence, preventive measures can be taken before patients experience
negative health outcomes. FICO Medication Adherence Score: Collection of publicly available
data including fields like patients age, gender, marital status, time in their current residence,
geographic region and disease can predict behavior about medical adherence.
Data scientists built a model (with a range of 1500) indicating the probability of a patient
adhering to the prescription in the first year of therapy. The random sample included more
than one million patients who had been diagnosed with one of the following five diseases:
asthma, depression, diabetes, high cholesterol or hypertension. The scientists then analyzed
these five data sets by using pattern recognition methodology, between patients who
filled/refilled prescriptions and those who didnt. From there they identified the variables most
associated with medication adherence and developed different prescription-adherence models
for each of the five diseases.
On an average a patient who fell in the top decile of this model adhered to their respective
prescriptions for 129 days more than the ones who did not. From this data analysis, doctors and
health insurers can use different tactics to help patients adhere to their prescriptions. These
tactics can be: reminders, simpler drug regimes, cheaper drug programs, overcoming language
barriers and in extreme cases nurses visiting the patients personally. Another analysis helped
in segmenting patients in six groups according to how they could be engaged and
communicated with more effectively. The result of this program was that the medication
adherence among the test subjects went up by 36%.