Release 4.1.4 of the Market Intelligence Portal (MIP) introduced the concept of an Influence Vector (IV). Located on each provider's home page, it's presence isn't very subtle and cannot easily be missed. The IV is a number on a scale from zero to one hundred, that provides a relative score of influencer comparison calculated from all the available factors of influence.
The purpose of the IV is to try to make better sense of all the individual factors of influence for an influencer. The numbers can tell a great story individually, but understanding what they mean all together can yield a different understanding of the data. The IV also helps to remove some of the complexity involved in analyzing numerous columns of data accross the influencer list.
Consider a simple scenario where a leader influences ten different healthcare providers and a second leader influences seven. On the surface, it would be easy to say that the leader with ten followers is better than the leader with seven. However, what if one could dig a little deeper to realize that the leader with ten followers only had three who were not in his institution and the leader with seven had two followers who were also leaders themselves and his followers were spread out among numerous institutions. That lower level of detail, exposes a different method of ranking these two influencers.
While the IV is based on the ten factors of influence, there are really more than ten parts of data that make up the basis for the IV. Each factor has numerous sub-dimensions that are exposed to calculate the IV. Each dimension is weighted as to its importance given static definitions and/or rule-driven assignments.
By default, the IV is geared to highlight national leaders, though it is possible to customize the IV calculations to suit a more specific need or goal.
The IV is visualized as a scale with an arrow marker that points to the influencer's position on that scale. The further to the right of the scale the arrow is, the closer to the maximum value of the IV the influencer is. Influencers with a perfect 100 score are considered most influential given all the factors of influence considered.
IV is written as:
IVd = x
where:
IV = Influence Vector
d = dimensions of data
x = the value of the Influence Vector
The d refers to the number of dimensions of data utilized to calculate the IV. The more points of data exposed to the IV, the more complete an understanding that can be derived from the data.
