2022 Introduction to Statistics in Research Mitchell 2nd ed

I N T R O T O R E S E A R C H : D A T A V I S U A L I Z A T I O N & C O M M O N S T A T T E S T S

Examples of Studies Research is a process that has a lot of steps before you identify the type of study that fits your research question and situation. This foundational chapter provides a basic understanding of only some of the studies. Researchers consider studies that match the research question and the situation. Retrospective observational study examples A ret rospective study is backward-looking. For example, if a researcher studying criminal behavior identify and interview convicted prisoners who are three-time offenders about their childhood and past - this is an example of a retrospective observational study.

Real Examples

Retrospective observational study of emergency admission, readmission and the 'weekend effect' by Shiue, McMeekin, and Price. This study is from the BMJ Open Journal. I was interested in this because I’ve reviewed the penalty for both Union Hospital and Terre Haute Regional Hospital. Both have penalties since 2015 for readmission.

Essentially, Medicare counts as readmission for any patient who ended up back in the hospital within 30 days of discharge (does not include planned events like surgeries). When this happens, a hospital is penalized if the readmission rate is higher than expected using national trends. Information for all hospitals is available at KHN.org from 2015 to 2021. The screenshot shown below shows the percentage of penalties assessed against Terre Haute Regional Hospital. A one percent penalty can equate to around $700,000 in Medicare payments. Therefore, studies like the ‘ weekend effect’ and readmission are studies that are absolutely vital to all hospitals.

Table 40 - KHN: Look Up Your Hospital: Is it Being Penalized by Medicare?

Information about the study : Shiue I, McMeekin P, Price C. (2017, March 2).

Retrospective observational study of emergency admission, readmission and the ‘weekend effect’ BMJ Open 2017;7:e012493. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016- 012493

Link to study: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/3/e012493

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