Carragee Consulting

A minor rant about my medical experiences as a data analyst

My doctors measure my height and weight sometimes multiple times in the same day and routinely at least twice a week.

While I understand they need to monitor KGs of body weight to correctly dose medication I have no idea why they think they need to measure my height before blood draws and office visits.

I’m 5’6″. I’ve been 5’6″ since I was about 16. My height hasn’t changed in the last 2 decades.

Due to measurement error and inconsistencies in the data collection process (with or without my shoes and hat, standing up straighter) my height is measured anywhere from 5′ 5.236″ to
5′ 6.929″ . — yes, they use 3 decimal precision

The absurdity of requiring this measurement so frequently, collecting it inaccurately and then not observing it for any near term purpose should be jarring.

The thing is we do this in analytics all the time –store and track data, sometimes even near real time, that no one is using for decision making.

At best it’s useless.

More realistically it may be a data breach risk, it may be a sizable portion of your data storage costs and it’s definitely junking up your data warehouse/swamp.

“One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall”
Jefferson Airplane

How to avoid collecting junk? Ask yourself these questions about new “required” data:

1) Ask why do we need to know this?

1b) Is this an ad hoc or one time request, or an ongoing need?

2) How frequently will it change?

3) What will we do differently based on this data? (Reformulations of #1)

4) is this still accurate?

5) what would happen if our competition had this data?

6) Do we have anything similar or a proxy for this information?

7) what is the cost of acquisition?

8) what is the cost of storage?

9) what is the decision value or product value it can provide? For how long?