“The computer mixes and shuffles scores of facts from the medical records — age, marital status, diagnoses, prescriptions — and settles on the factors that together are most strongly associated with suicide risk. The V.A. model integrates 61 factors in all, including some that are not obvious, like arthritis and statin use, and produces a composite score for each person. Those who score at the very top of the range — the top 0.1 percentage — are flagged as high risk.” Benedict Carey in the NYT: Can an Algorithm Prevent Suicide? (The headline is a little misleading. The real question is whether data can accurately identify those most at risk. It’s a strategy that’s already being used in other areas of health care.)