Why is it necessary for health care professionals to understand statistics?
When joining medical schools, most students are relieved to be finally done with statistics lessons. This perception is entirely misplaced! In fact, a good percentage of people settle on medicine as an escape from mathematics. Unfortunately, they are later taken aback to learn that studying medicine also requires them to learn statistics, a branch in mathematics concerned with collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. However, the degree of literacy in statistics for health care professionals is different from that of a person pursuing statistics as a career.
Medicine and statistics have a close relationship. Unfortunately, most healthcare professionals often underestimate the role of statistics in healthcare. But why should healthcare professionals have some level of proficiency in statistics? After all, they will be dealing with drugs and taking care of sick people. Where does statistics come in? It is simple. Hospitals and healthcare organizations handle tons of data that need to be measured, analyzed, and interpreted on a daily basis. The analysis employs statistical knowledge, which makes it critical for healthcare professionals to be literate in statistics.
Let us look at different ways in which healthcare employ statistical knowledge
Utilization
Information such as age, sex, race, income levels, and cases of disabilities is used by researchers to determine the type of medical services needed by a given population. This data is collected using statistical methods, which is then analyzed and interpreted accordingly. Through this, different groups of people can be identified, and the type of services they require can be availed at the level of care affordable to them. Hospitals also use such data when applying for government funding.
Resource Allocation
The importance of statistical knowledge is critical when it comes to resource allocation. First, the government relies on statistical information given to them by healthcare organizations when allocating funds. Healthcare organizations also use the data in distributing scarce medical resources to different groups of people in society. without such information, healthcare providers would not know what products to produce and how to distribute these products and services efficiently.
Quality Health care
Medical professionals can utilize knowledge in statistics to conduct further research. By evaluating the efficiency of existing treatments, they can make necessary interventions focused on improving the quality of healthcare services.
The role of statistics in healthcare is evidently irrefutable. Statistical knowledge helps healthcare professionals in making crucial decisions such as utility, costs of medical goods and services, as well as the allocation of scarce medical resources.
