Discuss why it is important for a person working in health care to understand statistical concepts. Provide an example of how statistical data is used in your organization or specialty area today and what you are expected to do with this information as a practitioner.

Topic 1 DQ 2: Understanding Statistical Concepts in Health Care

With the changing of medical practice and delivery of care, there is a need for people working in the healthcare sector to have statistical knowledge (Aggarwal, 2018). Currently, the medical sector is transforming into an industry player that makes use of data to infer solutions. Statistics, through quantitative research, helps in shaping research makers with key numerical data retrieved from observations or measurements that best describe the characteristic of a specific population sample.

Based on descriptive statistics, the health care industry can best summarize the efficacy, cost, and utility of medical services and products (Aggarwal, 2018). For instance, the understanding of the prevalence of a given disease can be understood using statistical details to provide its relationship with the causative factors.

In my organization, there is the implementation of evidence-based practice with many nurses encourages us to understand how to come up with proper PICOT questions (Butler, Hall, & Copnell, 2016). Evidence-based practice makes use of statistical correlation to understand the best more of care that a patient who exhibits a certain set of characters can be given.

Not only does the practice help in the provision of quality care, but also in the provision of quality management services and support due to enhanced decision making. As practitioners, the expectation is that we be able to interpret the information retrieved from the statistical data and use it to offer better and informed care.

The end goal of using evidence practice is to maximize the overall positive patient outcomes (Butler, Hall, & Copnell, 2016). Similarly, the practice ensures that most patients attain high levels of patient satisfaction, and the number of medical errors is also minimized. In this manner, statistics have a close relationship with overall patient care concerns and issues.

References

Aggarwal, R. (2018). Statistical literacy for healthcare professionals: Why is it important? Annals of cardiac anaesthesia21(4), 349. Doi: 10.4103/aca.ACA_177_18

Butler, A., Hall, H., & Copnell, B. (2016). A guide to writing a qualitative systematic review protocol to enhance evidence‐based practice in nursing and health care. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing13(3), 241-249. Doi: 10.1111/wvn.12134

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