Identifying Opportunities to Improve Healthcare at VA Medical Centers

Data Driven Decision Making Template

PROMPT

RESPONSE

A.

Describe a real-world business situation that could be addressed by collecting and analyzing a set of data.

Adverse patient incidents such as surgical misadventures (i.e., operating on the wrong limb) and falls represent a major but preventable problem for all tertiary healthcare facilities, including Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers.

A1.

Summarize one question or decision relevant to the real-world business situation you will answer by collecting and analyzing a set of data.

Which VA medical centers experience the highest rates of preventable adverse patient events such as falls by ward and shift?

A2.

Explain why the situation or question would benefit from a data analysis.

Current estimates indicate that as many as 180,000 deaths occur each year in the United States due to medical care errors such as adverse patient incidents (Patient safety, 2017). In addition, adverse patient incidents can also increase the length of inpatient stays and the overall costs of healthcare. Therefore, identifying the VA medical centers that experience the highest rates of preventable adverse patient incidents can help pinpoint root causes and individuals responsible (by subsequent analysis of shift, ward and average patient-staff ratios) as well as the opportunity to provide remedial training or apply other disciplinary action to reduce these rates.

A3.

Identify data you will need to collect that is relevant to the situation or question. Note: A sample size of 30 or more is suggested to provide a statistically reliable finding.

National datasets concerning the date, number, type and observed rates per 1,000 of adverse patient events experienced at VA medical centers are published by Medicare.

A4.

Describe the data gathering methodology you will use to collect data.

The datasets published by Medicare concerning adverse patient events will be downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet.

A5.

Identify the appropriate data analysis technique youwill use to analyze this data (e.g., linear programming, crossover analysis, t-test, regression).

A linear regression analysis will be used to estimate the relationship between VA medical center locations and the number of adverse patient events by type.

A5a.

Explain why the data analysis technique you chose isan appropriatetechnique to analyze the data collected.