Diagnostic Analytics

Diagnostic analytics is a form of data analytics that builds on descriptive analytics to help you understand why something happened in the past. Often, diagnostic analysis is referred to as root cause analysis. It involves processes such as data discovery, data mining, and drill down and drill through.

How can diagnostic analytics help in the real world? In a healthcare setting, diagnostic analytics would explore the data and make correlations. For instance, it may help you determine that many patients’ symptoms—high fever, dry cough, and fatigue—point to the same infectious agent. You now have an explanation for the sudden spike in volume at the ER.

If you want to take your analysis even further, you could use predictive analytics or prescriptive analytics to predict what is most likely to happen in the future.