Missing data

[laughs]

Because they did some things that made it look like they had mysteriously missing data.

And just for the choose-your-own-adventure section, the choose-your-own-deadline section, they had 51 students in the section, but they reported degrees of freedom in some T-tests that suggested they used data from only 45 students, not 51.

Okay.

[laughs] Where did they go? Right.

So that just sets the stage for me being a little an- annoyed, a little suspicious because they didn't mention-

So, you know, missing data happens sometimes.

Maybe somebody forgot to record that, but if there's six people with missing data, they ought to tell you somewhere in the paper, "We have missing data because," and I'm assuming they did not here.

But it is a total mirage.

It's an optical illusion built on missing data.

You are artificially inflating your department's success rates because the most vulnerable patients, the ones sitting at home with a hot, swollen, failing joint, are entirely invisible in your dataset.

It is a profound institutional vulnerability.

They will entirely miss the signal that patients from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who perhaps lack strong home support networks are failing the pathway and presenting to other A&E departments.

We have to train our clinical leaders to view missing digital data not as an administrative annoyance, but as a glaring, flashing red clinical flag.

Missing data is a symptom of pathway failure.

This thematic thread of missing data brings us to the absolute apex of the current digital revolution, artificial intelligence.