Data Collection Plan .docx
- 1. Data Collection Plan 6 Data Collection Plan Member C November 24 2014 QNT/561 Jesus Cardenas Introduction For health care organizations, it is important to ensure that these are working for the purpose of satisfaction of the patients. Health care organization considered here is First Physician Group. This organization has the problem regarding long waiting time of patients. Due to long waiting time of patients, there is an instance that patients might not move forward to get their treatment carried out within the organization. Organization has identified the clinic wait times are above the average level. A survey needs to be conducted based on two variables. First variable regarding the present situation is productivity as a dependent variable and second variable considered here is productivity shift which is an independent variable. Organization has to ensure that it is working for the purpose of ensuring that it patient waiting times are reduced to a certain level in the future. Research Question The research team in the present situation has the following dependent variable.
- 2. The research question is whether the organization needs to work towards its productivity or productivity shift for finding out solution to the problem regarding waiting time of patients. If there are strong evidences that waiting time is increasing due to productivity and productivity shift then, organization needs to take efforts for making certain changes for enhancing the productivity. The Hypothesis Statement H0). There is no problem with the productivity or productivity shift within the organization regarding patient care H1). There is problem in the productivity of the organization regarding providing care to patients at a particular point of time. Research Design a) Population and size: The population of interest considered in the present situation includes the patient of the organization First Physician Group. Here, in the present situation, the patients visiting the health care organization could be changing over a period of time. The patients taking health care facilities from the organization at one time may not move forward to take health care facilities at another point of time. Time period considered in the present situation is the time of 1 month. b) Sampling elements which may be collected through survey: Here, the main interest is the find out the reason due to which the patient waiting time in the organization is increasing to a certain level (Wood & Kerr, 2010). Increase in patient waiting time is not appropriate for the organization as it results in the situation that the organization would not have same level of patients visiting it for generating better revenues. In the present situation, organization has to ensure that it is working for the purpose of ensuring that, it is reducing the waiting time and enhances productivity of health care professionals so that the
- 3. patients get their work carried out in a quick period of time. Sample Questions 1. What is the ratio of patients and health care professionals 2. What is the average waiting time for patients 3. What is the maximum time patients have waited 4. In which area, highest time has taken to provide assistance to patient 5. Is there any patient who has moved out after waiting for long period of time c) Sample Size Here, sample size is calculated by using 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error. The sample size is calculated as 289 as provided in appendix. The population here does not include must data points as in each year; certain changes are made in the population size. The sample size for a period of 24 years selected in the present situation can be considered to be realistic in the present case. d) Method Here, the interest of the organization is to make sure that it determines whether there is any need to make changes in the method of working of the organization to ensure that there is reduction in the time the patients are required to wait within the organization. This particular thing results in the situation in which the patients do not require waiting for a long period of time within the organization. Validity (and Reliability) The research in the present situation is conducted in relation to analysis of the area related to reduction in waiting time of patients to a certain extent. The organization has made use of certain survey questions to find out the actual reasons due to which the time is reduced to a certain level (Rubin & Babbie, 2009). The research can be considered to be valid as this research has considered the points of questions from the health care professionals over a period of time.
- 4. Data Collection Here, the data is to be collected from the internal sources such as health care professionals and external sources from the patients. Data Storage The data in the present situation will be stored in web servers so that it is readily available without any kind of issue or problem. The data can be used for further analysis from the web servers. Conclusion The effort here is to determine the reason of high waiting points of the patients. These points will result in the case of improvement in productivity of health care professionals. The patients shall not be moving away from the health care organization for the purpose of ensuring that health care organization does not have the problem of reduction in organizational revenues. Appendix A: From the past information we can assume a point estimate of the market share to be around 25% so the required sample size is, Sample Size ≥ 0.25*(1-0.25)*(1.96/0.05)2 = 289. References Rubin, A. & Babbie, E. (2009). Essential Research Methods for Social Work. (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning. Wood, M. & Kerr, C.J. (2010). Basic Steps in Planning Nursing Research: From Question to Proposal. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
- 5. PAGE 5 Sampling and Data Collection Plan Sampling and Data Collection Plan Member B November 24 2014 QNT/561 Jesus Cardenas Sampling and Data Collection Plan . Senior management of First Physicians had observed that the clinic wait times is above the standard average, and it is concerned with how this situation will further affect the customer satisfaction scores and most importantly, their loyalty. To further understand why the clinic has long wait times and draw a conclusion for improvements, a survey in needed. Research question: How long the patients are willing to wait to see their doctor’s? a) The clinic is serving over 10,000 households with family members of various ages, ranging from 0 years to 99. b) The population is too large to survey all of them; therefore the clinic will focus on surveying the working adults, with ages between 30 and 55. This population was chosen because they are working individuals, and carry health insurance through their employees. They are visiting the doctors for yearly physicals, routine follow-up visits and emergencies.
- 6. c) Sampling will be done through survey, the clinic schedule will be pulled for a week in advance of the appointments and patients that will fit in the target population will be approached at the check in window, and will be asked a few questions about their expectations. Survey Questionnaire 1. Was an appointment available with us at the time of your call? (yes, no, n/a) 2. How long are you willing to wait to be seen for an urgent matter? (1, hour, 1 day, a week,) How long for a non-urgent matter? (1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month) 3. If an appointment was not offered at the time of your call, would you visit an urgent clinic? (yes, no, n/a) 4. How long are you willing to wait in a clinic to be “worked- in”? (between 1-3 hours, longer, n/a) 5. Would you recommend your physician to your friends and family members? (yes, no, n/a) d) The sample size is comprised of 385 of observations, all the patients that are scheduled to visit the clinic in a week period of time, and are representing the target, as described above. See calculations in the appendix. e) The method of random sampling that will be used is stratified sampling. A stratum is a subset of the population that shares at least one common characteristic. Random sampling is then used to select a sufficient number of subjects from each stratum. "Sufficient" refers to a sample size large enough for us
- 7. to be reasonably confident that the stratum represents the population. Validityis the extent to which an instrument measures what it is supposed to measure and performs as it is designed to perform. As a process, validation involves collecting and analyzing data to assess the accuracy of an instrument. How validity will be achieved? For Quantitative studies: measurements, scores, instruments used, research design. Qualitative studies: member checking, triangulation, thick description, peer reviews, external audits. Reliability will be achieved as follows: for Quantitative studies by Assumption of repeatability, and for Qualitative studies -Reframe as dependability and confirmability. Human subjects will not be protected, as the information’s collected are not confidential in nature and the patients are willingly and openly responding to the survey. No personal data will be attached to any survey, and patient’s responses will remain anonymous. The data will be physically collected in the clinic, as the patients check in for their appointments, they will be presented with the survey. They will be advised that their responses are used to improve the outcomes of the clinic, and they are invited to provide their feedback, only if they would like to do so. Once completed, each survey will be placed in a confidential folder until the end of the business day, at the check-in window. This procedure will ensure that the employee will approach each patient and the survey will be offered to all the targeted participants. At the end of the day, the confidential folder containing the surveys will make its way to the office manager, and will be locked in a file cabinet until all the survey responses are ready to be processed for analysis.
- 8. Appendix: Calculation for the sample size assuming 95% confidence level, 0.5 standard deviation, and a margin of error of+/- 5% ((1.96)² x .5(.5)) / (.05)² (3.8416 x .25) / .0025 .9604 / .0025 384.16 385 respondents are needed Sampling and Data Collection Plan Member A QNT/561 11/24/2014 Introduction There is a vast range of a population that be obtained from the healthcare field. For this sampling, we are taking patients who came into have services done through First Physicians
- 9. Group. Patients have been complaining of long wait times for services, and based on a survey that we will be conducting, we want to know how long the average wait time is and what patients think of it, we will also be asking what we can do to make the wait time better for the patients who come in for services with us. The survey will be five simple questions as follows: 1) What time of day did you come in? 2) What type of service were you here to be seen for? 3) How was the overall service that you received from our facility? 4) Were you informed that there may be a wait for your services? 5) What can we do to improve your next experience with us? This will be a simple survey of 100 patients who have come in to have services done. The surveys will go out in the mail and we will be reviewing all responses that come in. As a counter to this survey, we will also be tracking these patients when they come in. We will track what time they checked in, what time they were taken back for service and what time they were checked out. When calculating the sample size of the patient population, we are looking at a sample size of 100, with a confidence level of 95% and a 5% margin for error, with an answer of 4.27. This is valid because the physician group used a survey of 100 people to conduct this, and they made sure to get information from all of these people in order to conduct the analysis and make sure that they had an accurate amount of people were evaluated to get an accurate number. There will be one person that will be conducting the survey, and all information received regarding the survey will be given to this specific person who will be keeping track of all information. This will be gathered and then looked over and trends will be looked at to see and evaluate why wait times are so long for patients. This will hopefully in the future help the practice to better serve their patients with shorter wait times
- 10. and make things more efficient.