When responding to your peers, let them know if you agree or disagree with their assessment of the precision/reliability and validity of their measuring tool/method of measurement. Provide another tool that they could use to measure whatever they chose and discuss whether it is more or less precise and valid than their measuring tool.
Lisa Discussion:
Hello, my name is Lisa. It has been 12 years since I graduated from Holy Family University with a Bachelor's degree in Radiologic Science. This is my third class toward a Master's degree in Healthcare Administration. I work right outside Philadelphia in a hospital specializing in Orthopedics. I have been working exclusively in the Radiology department thus far in my career. My goal is to be a manager. I must admit, I am intimidated by the class.
Every year in my organization, each department is assigned a Performance Improvement (PI) assignment. Last year MRIs assignment was to measure the number of claustrophobic patients monthly. Claustrophobia is the fear of enclosed spaces (Vadakkan & Siddiqui, 2022). The technologist tracked the number of patients daily that was claustrophobic/could not perform the study on the daily schedule. At the end of the month, we calculated the percentage of claustrophobic patients—for example, 250 patients, 27 claustrophobics, and 9.26% of claustrophobic patients for that month. According to the text, these measurements are quantitative (Gerstman, 2015). This measure can be further broken down into categorical measurements: male vs. female patients and body part scanned. This monthly PI did produce reliable results, especially when repeated monthly. At the end of the year, it gave us a high percentage of claustrophobic patients. The department could purchase double-sided glasses, eye masks, and new headphones to reduce the number.
Gerstman, B. B. (2015). Basic Biostatistics: Statistics for Public Health Practice. Burlington, Massachusetts. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Vadakkan C, Siddiqui W. Claustrophobia. [Updated 2022 Nov 27]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542327/
Megan Discussion:
Hello everyone. My name is Meaghan Allison. I live in Long Island, NY, am married, have 3 boys, and have 2 dogs. I volunteer as an EMT-B for the local ambulance since 2008. I am here at SNHU obtaining my MHA (this is my second to last course!). I currently work for a large health system as a senior coordinator, which entails answering 911 calls, deploying and dispatching emergency ambulances, setting up emergent and non-emergent interfacility transfers, and several other ancillary phone lines for the entire health system.
By the end of this course, I hope to have a more concise and thorough understanding of Biostatistics and be less afraid of Biostatistics.
I do have some experience in running statistical analyses. In my current role, I am in charge of updating the daily demand graph to create the demand for the day that shows how many ambulances will be available for deployment. The graph is based on unit hours, and I adjust the hours the ambulances will be running to show when the highest demand is and what the maximum would be for the day.
Measurement best defines how our data is obtained (Gertsman, 2015). At home, something I measure is the length of my walls to accurately have the right size of furniture ( we just moved into our forever home almost two years ago). The walls are measured using a metal retracting measuring tape. This method produces precise, reliable, and valid measurements. The slide-in tape measures like the one I use and has a metal hook at the end. The metal hook is calibrated to move just enough so I can have a beginning measurement of a “true zero” (McKay & McKay, 2022). This would be useful and valid for both inside and outside measurements of an object. However, like all else, in the event, the tape measure is not taken care of properly the calibration potentially could become thrown off which would then result in inaccurate measurements (McKay & McKay, 2022).
References
Gertsman, B. (2015). Basic Biostatistics, Statistics for Public Health Practice (2nd ed). Jones and
Bartett; Burlington, MA
McKay, B., & McKay, K. (2022). Everything You Didn’t Know About The Trusty Tape Measure.
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