Question

Discuss the historical application of statistics in the field of health care. Describe an example, other than Florence Nightingale's contributions, where statistical application has greatly influenced or changed health care operations or practice

Answer 1

In healthcare, we use statistics in an effort to improve healthcare and keep patients safe. Health Statistics provide information for understanding, monitoring, improving and planning the use of resources to improve the lives of people, provide services and promote their well-being. Statistics are used in healthcare for research, quality improvement, inequalities in healthcare, risk analysis, inventory management and cost, resource utilization, patient length of stay, patient satisfaction, clinical trials, morbidity and mortality, effects of new treatments, measuring change, laboratory analysis, education, and much more.

In health care, statistics is used to “identify patient care trends using data, and increase the ability to create and utilize evidence-based practice”. There are several major uses of health statistics. Health statistics helps create fundamental knowledge about the health of populations; it provides information to guide health policy development, assessment, and evaluation.

Statistics have been utilized in healthcare since at least the 19th century. Florence Nightingale used a statistical approach to decrease the mortality rate of British troops in Crimea. She was an innovator in the collection, tabulation, interpretation, and graphical display of descriptive statistics and her meticulous records were a key to present day statistical quality measurement (Sheingold& Hahn, 2014). Clara Barton applied the same analysis in the United States during the Civil War. Louis Pasteur applied statistics in his research of microbes and the germ theory to create penicillin. This evidence led to the wide-scale adoption led to the development of pasteurization.

Influenza Pandemic is the worst outbreak of disease in U.S. history (1918) and in this fifty million world’s population was killed. During the Influenza Pandemic, Dr. Blue’s quality tools were, mandatory medical exams for all immigrants entering the country, communication in the form of weekly newsletters that contained information about the latest outbreaks, and the results of influenza research conducted at the Hygienic Laboratory which continues to exist today (Sheingold & Hahn, 2014).The medical records kept during the 1918 influenza pandemic serve to inform how we should respond to a similar widespread outbreak of biological disease, and provide data on the long term effects of the flu on pregnant woman.

Reference:

Sheingold, B. H., Hahn, J. A. (2014). The history of healthcare quality: The first 100 years 1860-1960. International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences.Vol. 1.Pages 18 – 22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2014.05.002

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