RHIT - Registered Health Information Technician Healthcare Statistics and Analytics 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A hospital had 2,500 discharges last month with 15,000 discharge days. What is the average length of stay (ALOS)?
- 5 days
- 6 days (Correct answer)
- 7.5 days
- 10 days
Correct answer: 6 days
ALOS = 15,000 / 2,500 = 6 days.
ALOS is a key hospital performance metric used for benchmarking, resource planning, and quality monitoring. It varies by DRG, service line, and patient population.
Question 2: What does a hospital's bed occupancy rate measure?
- The number of beds purchased
- The percentage of available beds occupied during a given time period (Correct answer)
- The number of nurses per bed
- The cost of each hospital bed
Correct answer: The percentage of available beds occupied during a given time period
The bed occupancy rate measures the percentage of available inpatient beds that are occupied.
Bed Occupancy Rate = (Total Inpatient Service Days / Total Bed Count Days) x 100. Most hospitals target 80-85% occupancy for optimal operations.
Question 3: What is the difference between incidence and prevalence?
- They are the same
- Incidence measures new cases over a time period while prevalence measures all existing cases at a point in time (Correct answer)
- Incidence measures deaths and prevalence measures births
- Incidence is for chronic diseases and prevalence for acute diseases
Correct answer: Incidence measures new cases over a time period while prevalence measures all existing cases at a point in time
Incidence refers to new cases occurring during a specific time period, while prevalence refers to total cases present at a particular point.
Incidence measures risk of developing a disease. Prevalence measures burden of disease. High incidence/low prevalence suggests acute conditions; low incidence/high prevalence suggests chronic conditions.
Question 4: A hospital reports 25 deaths among 500 surgical patients in a year. What is the surgical death rate?
- 2%
- 5% (Correct answer)
- 10%
- 25%
Correct answer: 5%
Surgical death rate = (25 / 500) x 100 = 5%.
Mortality rates are critical quality indicators. Hospitals track gross death rate, net death rate, anesthesia death rate, and postoperative death rate. Risk adjustment is essential for meaningful comparisons.
Question 5: Which measure of central tendency is most appropriate when data contains extreme outliers?
- Mean
- Median (Correct answer)
- Mode
- Range
Correct answer: Median
The median is not affected by extremely high or low values.
In healthcare, length of stay, charges, and wait times often have skewed distributions, making the median more informative than the mean for typical patient experience.
Question 6: What is the purpose of a case mix index (CMI) in hospital administration?
- To count total patient cases
- To measure the average relative weight of cases treated, reflecting complexity and resource intensity (Correct answer)
- To track patient satisfaction
- To determine the hospital's geographic service area
Correct answer: To measure the average relative weight of cases treated, reflecting complexity and resource intensity
CMI represents the average relative weight of DRGs for all cases treated, reflecting overall complexity.
CMI = Sum of all DRG relative weights / Total discharges. A CMI above 1.0 indicates higher-complexity cases than national average. CDI programs directly impact CMI.
RHIT - Registered Health Information Technician Healthcare Statistics and Analytics 2
A hospital had 2,500 discharges last month with 15,000 discharge days.
What is the average length of stay (ALOS)?