ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the basic principles of statistics that would be helpful for healthcare information technology (HIT or health IT) evaluation, concentrating on important clinical outcomes. It includes the essential skills needed to master basic statistical methods. The chapter analyses data statistically, and with a simple goal—to find the strongest possible conclusions from the available data. Descriptive statistics measures the central tendency and variability of data and consists of methods for organizing and summarizing data. Normal distribution is based on the theory that repeated measurements with the same instrument tend to be the same. The median and interquartile range (IQR) should be used for data description and non-parametric statistical methods. There are two groups of statistical tests for hypothesis testing: parametric and non-parametric. Parametric tests should be used on samples that are normally distributed. If a sample is skewed, non-parametric tests should be used.
