CPHQ Health Data Analytics 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A quality team reviews 6 months of door-to-balloon time data and calculates a mean of 68 minutes with a standard deviation of 12 minutes. What is the coefficient of variation (CV)?
- 8.8%
- 11.4%
- 17.6% (Correct answer)
- 22.2%
Correct answer: 17.6%
The CV = (standard deviation / mean) × 100 = (12 / 68) × 100 ≈ 17.6%, expressing variability relative to the mean.
Question 2: Which approach is most appropriate when an analyst wants to examine the relationship between two continuous variables, such as nurse-to-patient ratio and patient fall rate?
- Box plot
- Scatter diagram with regression line (Correct answer)
- Pareto chart
- Control chart
Correct answer: Scatter diagram with regression line
A scatter diagram displays the relationship between two continuous variables, and adding a regression line helps quantify the direction and strength of that relationship.
Question 3: In outcomes measurement, 'attribution' refers to:
- Crediting a patient outcome to a specific provider, team, or facility (Correct answer)
- Adjusting outcomes data for differences in documentation completeness
- Identifying which data element in the EHR caused a coding error
- Assigning patients to the correct payer category for billing
Correct answer: Crediting a patient outcome to a specific provider, team, or facility
Attribution is the process of linking a patient's outcome to a specific accountable provider, care team, or organization for performance measurement purposes.
Question 4: A healthcare organization is monitoring its 30-day readmission rate over time using a control chart. Upper and lower control limits are set at 3 sigma. A data point falls above the upper control limit. The correct interpretation is:
- The process is stable and the point is normal random variation
- A special cause has likely occurred and requires investigation (Correct answer)
- The measurement tool needs recalibration
- The average should be recalculated to include the new data point
Correct answer: A special cause has likely occurred and requires investigation
A data point beyond 3-sigma control limits is a signal of special cause variation, indicating something unusual occurred that warrants investigation.
Question 5: Which ICD coding system replaced ICD-9-CM in the United States for inpatient diagnoses and procedures on October 1, 2015?
- ICD-10-CM/PCS (Correct answer)
- ICD-11
- SNOMED CT
- CPT-4
Correct answer: ICD-10-CM/PCS
ICD-10-CM (diagnosis) and ICD-10-PCS (procedure) replaced ICD-9-CM for all HIPAA-covered entities in the US starting October 1, 2015.
Question 6: A quality team discovers that a spike in reported adverse events coincided with the launch of a new electronic event reporting system. This finding MOST likely represents:
- A true increase in patient harm requiring immediate intervention
- Increased reporting due to improved access and ease of reporting (ascertainment bias) (Correct answer)
- A data entry error in the new system
- A seasonal pattern in adverse event occurrence
Correct answer: Increased reporting due to improved access and ease of reporting (ascertainment bias)
Improved reporting infrastructure often leads to increased reported events without a true increase in harm, a phenomenon known as ascertainment or detection bias.
Question 7: Which of the following is an example of a 'structure' measure in Donabedian's framework for healthcare quality?
- Percentage of AMI patients receiving aspirin within 24 hours of admission
- 30-day mortality rate for heart failure patients
- Patient satisfaction scores for communication with nurses
- Nurse-to-patient staffing ratios on medical-surgical units (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Nurse-to-patient staffing ratios on medical-surgical units
Structure measures assess the attributes of the care setting, such as staffing ratios, credentialing, and physical facilities, rather than the care process or its outcomes.
CPHQ Health Data Analytics 5
A quality team reviews 6 months of door-to-balloon time data and calculates a mean of 68 minutes with a standard deviation of 12 minutes.
What is the coefficient of variation (CV)?