Healthcare Statistics

Course Project

Assignment 1 (Hospital overview): Identify a hospital in your area to research that interests you. Collect and analyze information about the hospital from its website, annual report, and other sources that you find. Write a 1-2 page paper that provides an overview of the facility. Include important information about its size, service deliveries, location, patient demographics, specialties, financial information and other information you find that is important or distinguishes the hospital.

Make sure that you properly cite references in an APA format. It is also important that you save any sources that you use for your paper as you will be creating an annotated bibliography as a future deliverable.

Assignment 2 (Descriptive Statistics: For this assignment you will be analyzing data about the hospital you selected for your Course Project. The choice of data-topic is up to you; this way you can be certain that data is available. This will also give you some freedom to select an area that fits with your degree program, career aspirations, or personal interests.

For example, students focusing on Healthcare Administration might want to focus on topics related to finance, operations or quality; whereas, Health Information Management students might focus on topics related to clinical outcomes, reimbursements, or specific diseases. Personal options might be if you have a special condition or are planning to have a baby and want to perform your statistical analysis focusing on those areas of the hospital as it relates to local and national data. (If you have questions or need ideas, please email your instructor.)

Once you have located your data, analyze it and produce:

1. At least 3 descriptive statistics

2. At least one chart or graph

Present these elements in a 1-2 page paper with properly cited APA references (not including your data and chart/graph information). Be sure to include adequate explanation of the statistics used and their importance as related to the topic.

Descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviations, frequencies, ranges, percentiles, etc. can be used. Your textbook is a great resource for ideas on statistics you can analyze.

You will most likely need to use some statistical analysis software to help make your calculations. You probably have Excel installed on your computer already and can find YouTube videos for 'Descriptive Statistics in Excel'. If you have another software package that you are comfortable using for your job or are feeling adventurous to learn something new, feel free to select different software to help with your analysis.

Compare your hospital with other local and national facilities of comparable size and service options (benchmarking). Some healthcare data resources that might help you can be found in the list below.

Some Helpful Healthcare Data Resources

If you find the website URLs have changed, search for the organization and locate the data it offers.

CMS Hospital Compare Tool

AHRQ

http://hcupnet.ahrq.gov/ provides access to health statistics and information on hospital inpatient and emergency department utilization.

Healthypeople.gov - DATA2020 Search: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/data-search/Search-the-Data

CDC National Center for Health Statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

CDC Chronic Disease Indicator Database: http://www.cdc.gov/cdi/

National Library of Medicine Data Tools and Statistics: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hsrinfo/datasites.html

CMS Data: https://dnav.cms.gov/Views/Search.aspx

CMS Research, Statistics, Data, and Systems: http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems.html

National Vital Statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss.htm

Google for your Local State Department of Health, some resources may be listed here: http://www.statelocalgov.net/50states-health.cfm

Assignment 3 (Research Design/Methods): For this section of your course project, you will:

1. Identify an underserved population for medical services from the hospital you have been researching (e.g. Medicare recipients, people with a specific disease, children, etc.).

2. Compose a written problem statement that contains both one independent (exposure) and one dependent (outcome) variable. Refer to the Problem Statement lecture in Module 02 for examples. The problem statement should be written in paragraph format and be about 1-page in length.

3. Write a purpose statement that describes the purpose of the study and specifies the independent and dependent variables. The purpose statement should also describe the underserved population and the geographical location. The purpose statement should be written in paragraph form and be approximately 1-page in length.

4. Provide a summary of the research methodology for your study. This is done by creating a research question which includes one null hypothesis and one alternative hypothesis with measurable independent and dependent variables. This information allows the reader to understand the focus of the study and how the results will be explained.

Explain an approach for providing service to this population.

Assignment 4 (Inferential Statistics): Write a 1-2 page paper describing how you would apply inferential statistics as part of your data analysis for the research and design methods you determined. This could include t-tests, ANOVAs, regression analysis, reliability, validity, and/or confidence intervals. Your textbook can provide ideas or examples that can be adapted to the topic area you have selected to focus on for your hospital.

Assignment 5 (National Guidelines Regarding Human Research on Human Subjects, Institutional Review Boards, and Rough Draft)

To prepare for this course project submission, read Protection of Human Subjects published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This document outlines the National guidelines regarding the protection of human subjects used in research.

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

As part of the case study, imagine that the hospital that was just acquired (the one you have been researching) is currently doing research or will be doing research in the future in conjunction with the parent hospital. Analyze how these guidelines should be implemented at the hospital that was just acquired (the one you have been researching) to make sure the practices are consistent between the two sites and explain the role the IRB plays in the process.

For example, would you create policies and procedures, offer training, create a handbook, or provide some other way to integrate these guidelines into the facility? Maybe the hospital you are researching already has these guidelines in place so your analysis will focus on making sure the practices are the same between sites.

Assignment 6 (Submit Annotated Bibliography and Final Project):

Submit an APA formatted annotated bibliography with a minimum of five (5) healthcare research study reports/articles obtained from either the online library or from a reputable Healthcare organization or government website that you used to write your paper.

Submit the final draft of your course project. The final paper must incorporate feedback from the instructor and contain all components from the individual course project assignments, including:

1. the overview of the facility you selected,

2. descriptive statistics presented,

3. research problem, purpose, and question with null and alternative hypotheses,

4. analysis of the Inferential Statistics that could be used to further analyze the data,

5. analysis of the National Guidelines Regarding Human Subjects' Research and the use of Institutional Review Boards, and

6. an APA formatted annotated bibliography with a minimum of 5 sources.

The final paper should be 6-10 pages in length not including the title page and references

Submit Rough Draft

Submit a rough draft of your course project. The rough draft should be approximately 6-10 pages in length not including the title page and references.

The rough draft should be formatted according to APA guidelines.