TN Med Helper is a fictional company whose mission is to ensure access to healthcare for all Tennesseans. TN Med Helper has approached your data science consultancy for help identifying communities in Tennessee that need the most help in expanding access to healthcare.
In this project, we will use the Medicare Disparities data as a starting point for identifying such communities. Specifically, you will be provided with datasets containing the percent of Medicare beneficiaries who had an annual wellness visit (annual_wellness.csv), the number of all-cause hospitilizations per 1000 beneficiaries (hospitalizations.csv), and the number of emergency department visits per 1000 beneficiaries (emergency_department.csv). Over the next 8 weeks, you will work towards addressing the following three objectives.
First, TN Med Helper is concerned about communities either lacking access to healthcare or losing access to healthcare. They are looking to expand telehealth technologies into the vulnerable communities, and need your help to priortize areas most needing attention. your first objective is to identify which counties in Tennessee have the most severe lack of access to healthcare (either due to lack of hospitals, physicians, or both). Once you have identified these counties, see if you can find any common demographic or economic characteristics for these areas.
Second, TN Med Helper is interested in reducing the number of potentially preventable hospitalizations. Do areas that lack access to healthcare tend to have higher rates of emergency department visits or hospitalizations? Is there an association between the percentage of beneficiaries who had an annual wellness visit and rate of hospitalizations or emergency department visits?
Finally, TN Med Helper is trying to identify specific subpopulations to focus more attention on. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, build a model to predict whether an individual has not had a checkup in the last year. What features does your model rely on to make predictions?
Over the course of this class, you will build up your data analysis skills and work towards answering these questions. At the end of the project, teams will present their findings to TN Med Helper.