Statistical and Mathematical Analysis in a Healthcare Setting

Introduction This chapter will discuss the topic of statistical and mathematical analysis in a healthcare setting. The author will share his experience with dealing, analyzing, and studying data from various healthcare systems, and how to explain trends to a nontechnically oriented audience. If the reader is interested in the basics of statistics or learning more about this topic, the author recommends Kurtz,* Walpole and Myers,† or Montgomery and Runger.‡

So, what is statistical and mathematical analysis? First, we need to define several terms. We, as engineers or managers, are concerned with two types of problems: summarizing, describing, and

Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................231 Commonly Used Descriptive Statistics .................................................................................... 232 Data Visualization ................................................................................................................... 234 Mathematical Analysis ............................................................................................................. 240 Exploratory Data Analysis ........................................................................................................241 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................241

exploring data or using data to infer on its nature. Mendenhall and Sincich* define descriptive statistics “as the branch of statistics devoted to the organization, summarization, and description of data sets.” Furthermore, in our profession we need to understand the type of data we are working with. Vining† classifies statistical analysis as “either enumerative or analytic studies. Enumerative studies tend to assume that the data come from a static process. Analytic studies tend to assume that the data come from a dynamic process that changes over time.”