What Is a Measure?

A measure is a number that is calculated by applying a mathematical expression to numeric data. Measure Factory applies one or more rules to records in data sets to calculate the measure value. Measure values are typically used as KPIs key performance indicators.

Understanding Rules and Measures

A rule is like a column in a data set. Each record has one value for each rule.

A measure is a way of summarizing or aggregating rules for a specified set of records.

Applying one rule to five records gives five values. Processing five records through one measure gives one value, which is suitable for diving to assess the data in greater detail.

For example, if you want to know the number of emergency room patients admitted to the hospital this month, you could apply an Admit Date rule to a measure called ED Admissions, which is defined as a count of the number of patients whose records indicate that they were treated in the emergency department and then admitted as an inpatient.