Monday, November 5, 2012

Cool new lab results data visualization

I've been trying to figure out how to put different graphs together in the same picture for a while now--finally got it working & could not contain my glee (thus, the blog post ;-). My main motivation is identifying local_cd's that I shouldn't be using (e.g., results should be character, but are numeric; units are wrong; values are way out of range, etc.). Check it out--I've got a VDW program that spits one of these out per value of test_type:

The graphs depict:
  • The number of result records over time.
  • The number of result values that are numeric vs. character, stratified by the local lab codes used.
  • The distributions of numeric result values, by unit.
  • The number of numeric result values, by unit and local lab code.
  • The values of character results by local lab code.
I just this morning submitted an abstract for the 2013 HMO Research Network conference & hope to present the graphs & program there.