Supplement to Chapter on Time to Adverse Events

Presentations

Listening to narrated slides and videos may require  Flash►

Assignments

Question 1: We have received a set of comments over time on the web. Check if we have improved?   Please note that there are no pre- and post intervention periods and therefore control limits must be calculated from the entire period. Data► Answer►

Question 2: The following data show the speed with which Alabama Medical Center's Emergency Room provides a patient who has fractured long bone with pain medication.  Examine if the organization has been able to reduce the response time to less than 73 minutes? Data► Answer► Aras's You Tube►

Measure Start Date Measure End Date Minutes to Pain Medication Sample
4/1/2013 3/31/2014 78 132
7/1/2013 6/30/2014 68 124
7/1/2013 6/30/2014 68 124
10/1/2013 9/30/2014 72 122
1/1/2014 12/31/2014 76 138
4/1/2014 3/31/2015 85 144
7/1/2014 6/30/2015 86 137
10/1/2014 9/30/2015 95 121
1/1/2015 12/31/2015 99 111

Question 3: A control chart requires independent repeated observations over time.  In addition, based on other factors, different charts are appropriate. In the following conditions identify one or more control charts that are appropriate.  If more than one control chart is appropriate, the usual approach is to try both charts and select the chart with tighter controls (i.e. control limits with smaller absolute difference):

 
Is there one observation per time period? Is the observation measured on a continuous (interval) scale? Are data outliers (values more than 2 standard deviations away from mean)? Recommended Chart
Yes Yes Yes  
Yes Yes No  
Yes No -  
No Yes  -  
No No  -  

Question 4: In the following data, we have tracked whether 352 infants in our pre-natal clinic eventually showed for various services in post-natal care.  Each clinic is reporting if these 352 patients showed at their clinic and on what dates.  Given these data, calcualte the referral rate to each clinic.  Has the rate of days-of-referrals to ultrasound clinic,  neurology clinic, and combination of ultrasound and neurological clinic changed over time?  Note that if there is two or more referrals on same day, you can count it as one day in which there has been a referral.  What is the daily probability of referrals to each of these three clinics.  In analyzing these data you may wish to use combination of if and match commands within excel.  The command may look like =if(match(A2, C:C, 0), 1,0).  This command says the value that should be matched is in A2, the look-up array is in column C, and 0 indicates that it should be exact match.    Data►

Question 5: In the past 3 years, there have been the following incidences of privacy violations:  A disgruntled employees sold information on May 11 of year 1.  Another disgruntled x-employee sold password to the system on Dec 12 of year 3.  There have been four incidences of clinician discussing patient information in social gathering on the following dates: December 5 year 2, January 25 Year 3, May 27 year 3, and September 1 year 3. Days of incidences of any other types of privacy violations were May 11 year 1, Nov 22 year 2, Dec 27 year 3.  Which types of privacy violations are more frequent?   Construct a time between control chart for any privacy violation.  In analyzing these data you may wish to use combination of if and match commands within excel.  The command may look like =if(match(A2, C:C, 0), 1,0).  This command says the value that should be matched is in A2, the look-up array is in column C, and 0 indicates that it should be exact match. 

More

  • Annotated bibliography for using control charts in management of asthma PubMed► 
  • Time to next relapse to drug use. More► PubMed► 
  • Number between g-type statistical quality PubMed►
  • Performance of g-type statistical control chart PubMed►