Demystifying Statistics and Machine Learning in Analysis of Structured Tabular Data

Electronic health records have facilitated the extraction and analysis of a vast amount of data with many variables for clinical care and research. Conventional regression-based statistical methods may not capture all the complexities in high-dimensional data analysis. Therefore, researchers are increasingly using machine learning (ML)-based methods to better handle these more challenging datasets for the discovery of hidden patterns in patients’ data and for classification and predictive purposes. This article describes commonly used ML methods in structured data analysis with examples in orthopedic surgery. We present practical considerations in starting an ML project and appraising published studies in this field.