The objective of this
case is to become familiar with the VA medical center appointment
backlog data and the characteristics of the various medical centers.
Since there are multiple variables to explore, we will focus on multivariate
data visualizations. Examining the data table we see that the hospitals
are identified by either Provider ID or Hospital Name. In some cases,
Hospital Name is quite long, and when plotted the axis labels will
take up a disproportionate amount of space on the graph. Provider
ID, while shorter, is a unique identifier that is not informative.
Since the data file is relatively small, a new variable could be
created manually with shortened hospital names. Another option is
to create a hospital identifier that contains the city and state where
the medical center is located.