[The Monthly Mean] August 2010--Lead article

You are viewing an early draft of the Monthly Mean newsletter for August 2010. I hope to send this newsletter out sometime in late August.

The Monthly Mean is a newsletter with articles about Statistics with occasional forays into research ethics and evidence based medicine. I try to keep the articles non-technical, as far as that is possible in Statistics. The newsletter also includes links to interesting articles and websites. There is a very bad joke in every newsletter as well as a bit of personal news about me and my family. If you are not yet subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign on at www.pmean.com/news.

Welcome to the Monthly Mean newsletter for August 2010. If you are having trouble reading this newsletter in your email system, please go to www.pmean.com/news/201008.html. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, there is a link to unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. Here's a list of topics.

Lead article: Lead article
2. Second article
3. Third article
4. Monthly Mean Article (peer reviewed): TBA
5. Monthly Mean Article (popular press): Factory Efficiency Comes to the Hospital
6. Monthly Mean Book: TBA
7. Monthly Mean Definition: TBA
8. Monthly Mean Quote: TBA
9. Monthly Mean Unsung Hero Award: TBA
10. Monthly Mean Website: Stopping stepwise: Why stepwise and similar selection methods are bad, and what you should use
11. Nick News: TBA
12. Very bad joke: TBA
13. Tell me what you think.
14. Upcoming statistics webinars
15. Join me on Facebook and LinkedIn

1. Lead article

TBA

2. Second article

TBA

3. Third article

TBA

4. Monthly Mean Article (peer reviewed): TBA

TBA

5. Monthly Mean Article (popular press): Factory Efficiency Comes to the Hospital

Julie Weed. Factory Efficiency Comes to the Hospital. The New York Times. 2010. Excerpt: "The program, called “continuous performance improvement,” or C.P.I., examines every aspect of patients’ stays at the hospital, from the time they arrive in the parking lot until they are discharged, to see what could work better for them and their families. Last year, amid rising health care expenses nationally, C.P.I. helped cut Seattle Children’s costs per patient by 3.7 percent, for a total savings of $23 million, Mr. Hagan says. And as patient demand has grown in the last six years, he estimates that the hospital avoided spending $180 million on capital projects by using its facilities more efficiently. It served 38,000 patients last year, up from 27,000 in 2004, without expansion or adding beds." [Accessed July 13, 2010]. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11seattle.html.

6. Monthly Mean Book: TBA

TBA

7. Monthly Mean Definition: TBA

TBA

8. Monthly Mean Quote: TBA

TBA

9. Monthly Mean Unsung Hero Award: TBA

TBA

10. Monthly Mean Website:Stopping stepwise: Why stepwise and similar selection methods are bad, and what you should use

Flom PL, Cassell DL. Stopping stepwise: Why stepwise and similar selection methods are bad, and what you should use. Available at: http://www.nesug.org/proceedings/nesug07/sa/sa07.pdf.

11. Nick News: TBA

TBA

12. Very bad joke: TBA

TBA

13. Tell me what you think.

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[[Number]] people provided feedback to the last newsletter.

14. Upcoming statistics webinars

I offer regular webinars (web seminars) for free as a service to the research community and to build up a bit of good will for my independent consulting business.

To sign up for any of these, send me an email with the date of the webinar in the title line (e.g., "April 28 webinar"). For further information, go to

* www.pmean.com/webinars

15. Join me on Facebook and LinkedIn

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 * www.facebook.com/pmean

and there is a fan page for The Monthly Mean

 * www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=302778306676

I usually put technical stuff on the Monthly Mean fan page and personal stuff on my page, but there's a bit of overlap.

My page on LinkedIn is

 * www.linkedin.com/in/pmean

If you'd like to be a friend on Facebook or a connection on LinkedIn, I'd love to add you.

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Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by Steve Simon and was last modified on 2010-07-15. Need more information? I have a page with general help resources. You can also browse for pages similar to this one at Category: Website details.