Introduction
In healthcare, statistics have a critical application because they help healthcare professionals to make evidence-based decisions, improve care delivery, enhance patient outcomes, and advance hospitals’ quality. Oster and Enders (2018) recommend that healthcare providers have statistical competence to boost their capacity to consume research findings and translate them into practice and further studies. An increasing body of knowledge compels healthcare providers to update their practices to be in line with novel results which are reliable and useful in delivering care. Moreover, the quality improvement of procedures, processes, and systems requires continual research activities through statistics. According to Guetterman (2019), statistics offer a systematic and rigorous process of generating valid and reliable healthcare findings. For healthcare providers, including nurses, managers, and physicians, to deliver optimal care, they apply statistical analyses to adopt evidence-based practices. In this view, this paper focuses on examining the application of statistics in healthcare aspects of quality, safety, promotion, and leadership, along with the routine application in nursing.
Application in Healthcare
Since healthcare services are sensitive and specific to patients’ unique needs, quality is an important attribute that determines health outcomes. The use of statistics enables healthcare providers to evaluate and establish if the nature of the care they deliver to patients meets the standards or deviates significantly from them. For instance, the World Health Organization has established standards and guidelines for healthcare providers to follow and ensure they deliver a specific quality of care to different patients. Diagnoses, treatment interventions, and patient outcomes are significant parameters analyzed using statistics to establish health quality (Oster & Enders, 2018). Accurate diagnosis of diseases requires statistics to determine if disease markers are reliable to make informed decisions regarding patients’ conditions. Variations in demographics and the needs of diseases necessitate applying statistics to customize treatment interventions among patients to achieve specific health outcomes. Overall, statistics allow healthcare providers to deliver care that is consistent with the established standards and guidelines.
The risk of medical errors in healthcare organizations requires applying statistics to ensure that diagnoses and treatments are safe. Patients’ diagnoses ought to be accurate to protect them from undue harm stemming from the use of drugs. In essence, the diagnosis should ensure that they provide precise information for the appropriate prescription of drugs. In drug design, statistics enable the determination of therapeutic indices and safety margins for doctors to prescribe the right doses and ensure safety from adverse effects (Oster & Enders, 2018). Furthermore, the statistical analysis aids in evaluating the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties of drugs for safety prescriptions to patients. By adhering to drugs’ safety margins, healthcare providers prevent medical errors related to dosage.
For healthcare organizations to undertake health promotion, they have to survey the target population and identify their unique needs. The process of doing a needs assessment requires statistics in the questionnaire design, sampling of individuals, information collection, and data analysis (Guetterman, 2019). Information such as prevalence, distribution, and risks enable epidemiologists to formulate effective interventions for health promotion. For example, the prevalence rates and the distribution of Coronavirus empower the health care systems to make informed decisions regarding preventive measures and guidelines necessary for effective health promotion among the target population.
Leaders play a critical role in healthcare organizations because they determine the nature of policies, guidelines, programs, and interventions to deliver quality care. To keep abreast of advancements in care, leaders read, interpret, and translate novel findings into effective interventions that ensure quality improvement (Guetterman, 2019). Researchers report their results using descriptive and inferential statistics for the target audience to consume and apply in their respective areas of specialization. Leaders’ work is to help their teams understand research findings and use them to advance the delivery of care. Significance, validity, and reliability are vital statistical parameters that leaders examine when interpreting and translating research findings.
Application in Nursing
As a specialty area, nursing requires statistical knowledge in undertaking research activities to improve the delivery of care to patients. Guetterman (2019) explains that applying statistics in research involves formulating a hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing information, interpreting analyses, and reporting findings. The formulation of a hypothesis is an integral step in research since it determines the nature of data and tests. Data collection entails obtaining relevant and representative information from individuals in the target population. The analysis of information needs descriptive and inferential statistics for an effective interpretation and reporting of findings.
In nursing, I would obtain statistical data by collecting information from patients using questionnaires, interviews, or measurements. Since nurses interact with patients during visits from the point of admission to discharge, and in follow-ups, they collect relevant data for monitoring health outcomes. Moreover, the emergence of electronic health records has eased data collection for nurses to analyze and make informed decisions regarding patients’ prognosis (Kruse et al., 2018). Therefore, electronic health records have enabled healthcare providers to collect and store data, which are essential in monitoring patient outcomes. Statistical analysis of the collected data generates meaningful information that allows evaluating trends of diseases and infections. Nurses can determine morbidity rates, length of stay, prognosis, and mortality rates based on data. Additionally, nurses can also establish a relationship between treatment interventions and risk factors among different patients.
In nursing, I would apply statistical knowledge in making appropriate decisions concerning the effectiveness of treatment interventions. Since different treatment regimens have varied influences on patient outcomes and the recovery process, statistics are integral in identifying effective interventions. Moreover, the analysis of the trend of vital signs would indicate if a patient requires continued medical attention, discharge, or follow-up. Thus, statistical knowledge offers an evidence-based approach to delivering nursing care to patients, resulting in enhanced health outcomes.
Conclusion
In healthcare, statistics play a significant role by ensuring the application of evidence-based practices, programs, and systems. Healthcare providers utilize statistics to offer quality care, ensure safety, promote health, and advance evidence-based decisions through leadership. Hence, statistical knowledge applies to collecting information, analyzing data, and interpreting findings in nursing for effective monitoring of patients to improve their outcomes.
References
Guetterman T. C. (2019). Basics of statistics for primary care research. Family Medicine and Community Health, 7(2), 11-17.
Kruse, C. S., Stein, A., Thomas, H., & Kaur, H. (2018). The use of electronic health records to support population health: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of medical systems, 42(214), 1-16.
Oster, R. A., & Enders, F. T. (2018). The importance of statistical competencies for medical research learners. Journal of Statistics Education, 26(2), 137-142.