Clinical Data-Mining (CDM) involves the conceptualization, extraction, analysis, and interpretation of available clinical data for practice knowledge-building, clinical decision-making and practitioner reflection. Depending upon the type of data mined, CDM can be qualitative or quantitative; it is generally retrospective, but may be meaningfully combined with original data collection.
Any research method that relies on the contents of case records or info… More >>
Clinical Data-Mining: Integrating Practice and Research
Clear, objective and most importantly accessible — Epstein’s Clinical Data-Mining: Integrating Practice and Research offers practitioner-researchers with a perspective on and rationale for the use of this methodology. Written for social workers, this book explains what CDM is and where it sits among methodological choices. Would you like to know whether and how to make the case for CDM in your dissertation? It’s in here. Are you a practitioner with access to data who wants to use that data to make the case for practice or policy? You too will want to check this book out! CDM is not a magic bullet for the anxious doctoral candidate or practice-researcher — to do it and do it well requires time and effort. The book explains that too.
Throughout, Epstein’s irreverence, humility and candor invites students and practitioners to consider CDM as a way to integrate their practice knowledge with research aspirations. As a student who is planning a CDM study, I welcomed the frank tone and exposition. Best of all are the detailed anecdotes from those who have used CDM, completed their doctoral dissertations and survived — enough so that they have gone on to illustrious careers. From beginning to end, this book encourages practice-based research yet it also takes a decided student- and practitioner-centered approach in its exposition and presentation of content. This book **motivates** doctoral students and practitioners to do research. Doctoral candidates will read this and see your way to “pay dirt” (meaning completion, sadly not $$ for us social workers!).
Rating: 5 / 5
While we always mention the culture differences between the East and the West, as a social work lecturer in Hong Kong, I would say that the concern on bridging the gap between practice and research is however universal.
Thus, this book is written for both readers in the West and the East.
If you are a researcher, this book illustrates how CDM may facilitate you to collaborate with the practitioners to develop research which is practice-relevant. If you are a practitioner, this book may empower you to develop practice-relevant knowledge through research. If you are a doctoral student, this book may be the one that may guide you to find the direction when you are lost in the PhD study.
I finished my PhD study by using CDM as the sole research method two years ago. Unluckily this book was not yet published at that time. By Prof. Irwin Epstein’s efforts, now you are able to better understand CDM and practice-based research. Step by step, you will know how to conduct a CDM study by reading this book. A lot of real life examples of CDM may also give you insights on how CDM can be applied on different service settings and topics.
No research method is perfect–CDM is not an exception. However, this is also why I like this book so much: Prof. Irwin Epstein has humbly shared with you the strengths and limits of CDM, and despite these how CDM may contribute to both social work research and practice.
I fully recommend this book to you before the end of year 2009!
Rating: 5 / 5
In Moliere’s ballet-play, Le Bourgeoise Gentilhomme,” a comedic element involves the discovery by the main character that he was speaking prose, but didn’t know it. Similarly, social work clinicians have long been producing informational “ore” in the practices, but may have been unaware of the extent to which this was valuable research data needing to be “prospected” and “mined.”
Fortunately, for the readers of this very informative and entertaining book, Clinical Data-Mining feels like a substantive and enjoyable conversation with the author in either his or the reader’s living room.
Professor Epstein has written an innovative book that can serve as a research strategy for those contemplating a doctoral dissertation, as well as a research tool for agency-based and independent social work clinicians interested in conducting and integrating research into their clinical practices. If it is not already there, it is easy to imagine that faculty in schools of social work will find it a valuable new tool in their research curriculum kits.
The “mining” metaphor is cleverly used throughout the volume and simultaneously serves to unify the conceptual material and arouse the reader’s interest in the utilization of CDM. It also provides additional levity to a book that already succeeds in being fun-to-read…no small achievement for a research text.
Dr. Epstein has managed to do in this book with CDM what he has been long known to achieve in the classroom and in his workshops and lectures: make research and related concepts thought-provoking and engaging, give the reader a tour of the research possibilities in front of them, and give instruction and guidance to the ways in which clinical data is research worthy and how mined data can inform and enhance clinical practice in all settings.
His CDM fluency and the comprehensive tour of his subject offered in this tight informational package make it an important book for research-oriented practitioners, students, and academics both in and out of social work.
Rating: 5 / 5
Clinical Data-Mining: Integrating Practice and Research, is a must read for social work researchers and educators, particularly those who teach research. Dr. Epstein demonstrates to the reader in a concise, candid, and humorous manner, the strengths of CDM for social work faculty and practitioners. In his discussion of CDM, Dr. Epstein provides a historical context which illuminates the challenges that he and other researchers have experienced in the acceptance of this approach as valid and useful. At the same time,he offers examples of original CDM research measuring program effectiveness, fidelity, as well as treatment outcomes. These examples provide validation that CDM is a valuable, practical, and useful research method for practitioners,faculty, and researchers of social work. An enriching and practical guide that will expand your social work research worldview.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is an excellent book written by someone who knows what clinical data-mining is all about. Epstein writes more to the practitioner than the researcher [and that in itself, makes it noteworthy].
This book is concise and well-written. It makes a great addition to Oxford’s Pocket Guides to Social Work Research Methods series.
Rating: 5 / 5