Question

Numerical data, measured in quantitative terms, reveal trends and patterns over time. For, example testing a new fall-prevention program within your hospital would require you to obtain a baseline fall rate before the program and then again after implementation of the program. Statistically, you could compare rate of falls before the new program with the rate of falls after the new program.

Describe another example of quantitative research design. How do quantitative research designs improve quality of care and health outcomes?

Answer 1

One of the research methods hospitals use to conduct studies is quantitative research. Quantitative research provides statistical, mathematical, or numerical results. Here are a few ways quantitative research that can be of help to improve services and impact behaviour.

Quantitative research for patient surveys, doctors can find more about their patient and how satisfied they were with their service. A good way that health care professionals conduct these studies is through surveys. Examples are: Patient satisfaction surveys, Pain and discomfort surveys

With this information, health care professionals can find what their customers want and how they can improve. The pain and discomfort survey can give the doctor and idea how their patients are feeling. Health facilities can also learn their customer’s demographics that can help them structure their services more.

Healthcare housekeeping supervisors may want to know what their patients think about their staff and they timely ask for their feedback. For example, if multiple patients in a nursing home have trouble with the quality of the bedsheets, research studies can help improve this issue or find whether replacing new bedsheets will solve the problem. Improving healthcare facilities is a great way to get customer and employee satisfaction.

Health professionals can be interviewed to learn general practices with respect to educating patients and patient information needs. This can be used to develop more compelling/helpful materials that will be shared with patients and then quantitatively tested. For example: Knowledge on HIV and disease transmission. Nurses can be given pre-test to understand their level of knowledge and further after they attend a workshop or a training program a post test could be given to understand their improvement in knowledge. The same could be applied and assessed the use of knowledge in the hospitals.