Description: Essay stating Americans need to invent, implement, and evaluate sustainable health care policies, divert cash-flow streams away from projects which feed the beast and focus on projects and policies which enhance value. It will require a combination of thoughtful, coordinated policies and a change in our cultural expectations of infinite resources and unlimited choice.

Description: This article discusses the pros and cons of high speed electronic transfer of medical data, and the implications this technology may have on health actuaries.

Description: The presenters discuss the results from the CIA/SOA-sponsored survey on analytics practices of the Canadian life and health insurance industry. This is an opportunity to understand what other companies are doing and benchmark your practices with those of your peers and gain deeper insights about potential applications and their perceived value and effort. Attendees do not need specialized knowledge in predictive analytics to benefit from the information presented. Examples are provided from a Canadian context, but potential applications are relevant across a wide spectrum of geographies.

Description: While medical and pharmacy claims data is a well-established source for healthcare analytics, significant data can be found elsewhere in electronic medical records (EMRs) and in hospital admit, discharge, and transfer (ADT) messages. Increasing availability of bulk EMR data to analyze coupled with more powerful and specialized tools for analyzing it presents an opportunity for actuaries to incorporate these sources in their work. This session will take a look at some of the data available beyond claims in EMRs and HL7 ADT messages, and will discuss case studies, with consideration around structure, ease of use, cleanliness, and tools available for analyzing these data types including natural language processing.