RHIT Healthcare Statistics and Analytics 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A hospital reports a case fatality rate of 2.5% for a particular disease. What does this rate measure?
- The proportion of diagnosed cases that result in death (Correct answer)
- The probability of contracting the disease in a given year
- The number of deaths per 100,000 population
- The percentage of autopsies performed on disease victims
Correct answer: The proportion of diagnosed cases that result in death
Case fatality rate measures the proportion of individuals diagnosed with a disease who die from that disease.
Question 2: Which statistical measure is most appropriate when data is highly skewed and contains significant outliers?
- Mean
- Median (Correct answer)
- Mode
- Range
Correct answer: Median
The median is preferred for skewed data because it is not affected by extreme values (outliers) the way the mean is.
Question 3: A health information manager calculates a hospital's net autopsy rate. Which deaths are EXCLUDED from the denominator?
- Deaths of patients who were hospitalized less than 24 hours
- Deaths occurring in the emergency department
- Deaths where the bodies were removed before an autopsy could be performed (Correct answer)
- Deaths of patients over age 65
Correct answer: Deaths where the bodies were removed before an autopsy could be performed
The net autopsy rate excludes from the denominator those cases where the body was removed by legal authorities before an autopsy could be performed.
Question 4: In a frequency distribution, what does a bimodal distribution indicate?
- The data has two distinct peaks or clusters (Correct answer)
- The data is perfectly symmetrical around the mean
- The data contains no outliers
- The mean and median are equal
Correct answer: The data has two distinct peaks or clusters
A bimodal distribution has two distinct peaks, suggesting the data may come from two different subpopulations.
Question 5: What is the purpose of risk adjustment in healthcare outcome reporting?
- To eliminate all patient-related variables from the dataset
- To allow fair comparison of outcomes across facilities with different patient populations (Correct answer)
- To increase reimbursement rates for high-risk patients
- To reduce the number of variables tracked in a clinical study
Correct answer: To allow fair comparison of outcomes across facilities with different patient populations
Risk adjustment accounts for differences in patient severity and demographics so that outcomes across facilities can be fairly compared.
Question 6: A hospital's average daily census is calculated by dividing the total inpatient service days by:
- The number of admissions during the period
- The number of calendar days in the period (Correct answer)
- The number of staffed beds available
- The number of discharges during the period
Correct answer: The number of calendar days in the period
Average daily census equals total inpatient service days divided by the number of calendar days in the reporting period.
Question 7: Which data visualization type is BEST suited for showing the relationship between two continuous variables?
- Bar chart
- Pie chart
- Scatter plot (Correct answer)
- Histogram
Correct answer: Scatter plot
A scatter plot displays the relationship between two continuous variables, with each point representing a pair of values.
RHIT Healthcare Statistics and Analytics 2
A hospital reports a case fatality rate of 2.5% for a particular disease.
What does this rate measure?