What do I use

Hospitals and health facilities

Clinical audit, quality improvement, bed and staffing decisions, infection control, service evaluation.

The usual order: Decide what you are managing - pull the routine data you already hold - chart it over time - compare where it differs - act, then chart again.

Your question, and what answers it

The question every manager asks and almost nobody answers correctly. A control chart separates ordinary variation from a real change, so you stop reacting to noise.

In ZStat: open your study, go to Analysis, and choose control chart.

What goes wrong in hospitals and health facilities

Comparing raw outcome rates between units without case mix. The unit that takes the sickest patients will always look worst.
Reacting to a single month above target. Most such movements are ordinary variation, and acting on them makes the process less stable, not more.
Treating routinely collected patient data as exempt from data protection because it was collected for care. The purpose has changed, and that is exactly what the law is about.

ZStat runs these checks whether or not you ask, and stops the analysis when one of them would make the result misleading. You do not have to remember this list.

Other fields

Medicine and clinical research Public health and epidemiology Psychology and behavioural science Education Agriculture and food science Urban planning, estate management and architecture Economics, finance and accounting Engineering, manufacturing and quality Institutional performance and educational decisions Agencies, NGOs and programme evaluation Government, parastatals and regulators Sociology, development and social work

Start free All procedures Questions