Application of Statistics in Health Care

Application of Statistics in Health Care

Grand Canyon University: HLT-362V-0501

Application of Statistics in Health Care

Statistics is the practice of collecting and analyzing numerical data to help others understand what the data is telling. When it comes to health care statistics play an important role in quality, safety and health promotion that will be discussed in this paper. This is as statistics in health care help understand disease within a population, health service coverage, risk factor, mortality, morbidity, and many other things. In this paper, the author will also talk about how statistics are used in her place of work and how its use in decision making. Statistics have evolved a lot from past years for better and will continue to evolve as years pass by (Ambrose, 2018).

Quality

Statistics play an important part of health care when it comes to quality as it checks of success and failures within a health care. This is done by building standards of service excellence, quality improvement or even benchmarks that can later be measure by manager or in charge personnel. Quality in health care mean to provide care to patient that will be affordable for them, will be provided when they needed, and it will be safe. One example will be the uninsured population that from 2015 being 24% decreased in 2016 to 22% meaning that governments, insurance companies have use previous statistics to make plans that more people can afford. In order to have quality improvement we need statistics that will show what are the places that need improvemt and based on that, changes can be made.

Safety

According to the CDC, there are approximately 2 million new hospital-acquired infections where 32% are urinary tract infections due to catheters and 22% were surgical site infections. To reduce this preventable harm, statistics need to be used so that everyone is properly educated on how often and commonly is happening around the world. By doing simple things health care providers can reduce this percentage that can even lead to patient death. One of the things is properly washing their hands, using catheters only if necessary and removing them as soon as possible. This will reduce hospital-acquired infection and lead to a shorter hospital stay and safer patient (Adhikari et al, 2019).

Health promotion

Health promotion is the process of an individual or community increase control over in other to improve their health. Statistics is applied in health promotion by serving as a tool to help monitor progress in health in different populations. Letting us know who is in more need. One of the CDC statistics is that one in ten American live with a chronic disease that leads to death. This statistic shows nurses the importance promoting health to all her patients by eating healthier and exercising daily they can do a big difference in their life and others (“National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion”, 2020).

Leadership

Statistics in leaderships shouldn’t be underestimated. This is as statistics in leaderships not only improve patient outcomes, it also improves the wellbeing of the providers. Leadership is important in health care to lead changes that statistics and evidence-based practice have shown to work best. A leadership in health care is a person that not only lead but foster innovation and changes, they also envision the future and work hard to get their team there, while providing a good example (Al-Sawai, 2013).

Application of Statistical knowledge to Organization

Statistics is used in all health care settings regardless if your work is an office or hospital. The author works as a registered nurse in a gynecology office. Statistical knowledge in my office is used to provide the best care to our patients by prioritizing calls, biopsies, and appointments as they may need same-day or follow up care. We obtain statistical data in our office by inputting all data in the electronic medical record. Some of the data that is input is patient demographics, all test results like a pap smear, mammogram, blood results and many more. Statistics is used in days to date operations by the following protocol and keeping track of results. One example of how statistics are applied in our office is that in recent years breast cancer diagnosis has increase we use that information to educate the patient on the importance of monthly self-exam and a yearly mammogram. Our office also uses patient satisfaction surveys as they let us know if we are meeting their expectations or if we are lacking in an area. With knowing this information, we can work as a team to improve the area that is lacking.

In conclusion, statistics is an essential component of health care. It provides a safer with a better-quality system. It also lets us know the importance of health promotion and how by educating the communities better outcomes can be obtained. Leadership is the key to success as they help to lead changes that statistics and evidence-based practice have shown to work best. Every workplace should use statistics to have better patient outcomes. References

Adhikari, B., Lewis, B., Vullikanti, A., Jiménez, J. M., & Prakash, B. A. (2019). Fast and near-optimal monitoring for healthcare acquired infection outbreaks. PLoS Computational Biology, 15(9), 1–22. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007284American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. Retrived from library.gcu.eduDatabase

Al-Sawai A. (2013). Leadership of healthcare professionals: where do we stand?. Oman medical journal, 28(4), 285–287. https://doi.org/10.5001/omj.2013.79 Retrived from library.gcu.eduDatabase

Ambrose, J. (2018). What Are Statistics and Why Are They Important to Health Science? Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/hlt362v/applied-statistics-for-health-care/v1.1/#/chapter/1

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2020, February 13). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/index.htm