Dear experts,

May I know the right way to monitor the in-patient incidents in the hospital? Is it by using the np chart or by the number of in-patient incidents divided by the number of admitted patients in each department?

Many thanks in advance.

D. Salmain.

I'm not familiar with your reaction paths for incident rates, so it's difficult to know just what your needs are.

However, I would not use the np chart because this statistical measure should be used for things that are alike. Arguably in-patient incidents could be caused by any number of things. In managing health care quality I would be interested in knowing:

1. What causes the incidents
2. How many of different types of incidents are occurring
3. How the incidents rank in severity

I would want this data to be collected separately by department.

Why? I would want data I can take action on. I want to know what actions are likely to bring me the greatest returns if I solve the problems. I want to know how the incident types and numbers differ among departments, especially if the departments are doing similar procedures.

Without such sensitive measures I would find myself unable to properly prioritize my attentions. I would be challenged to understand the benefit my efforts should bring.

In short, I would want my metrics to inform me what my biggest problems are, and how I would know what progress looks like.

I could do this with Pareto charts, especially if I assign severity levels to incident types and use spreadsheets to compute them into "scores" that I could communicate with management and interested stakeholders.

Dear experts,

May I know the right way to monitor the in-patient incidents in the hospital? Is it by using the np chart or by the number of in-patient incidents divided by the number of admitted patients in each department?

Many thanks in advance.

D. Salmain.You could use total patient hours or patient days. Look at the attached file for examples of what type of chart you might use for particular data.

You could use total patient hours or patient days. Look at the attached file for examples of what type of chart you might use for particular data.

Dear Sir,
Thanks for the information.
Regarding the Needle Sticks, may I ask you why c-chart not np-chart? Because we are not monitoring the number of events in each staff..
Also for the falls incidents why u-chart not p-chart?
I will be highly appreciated if you send my some references regarding the above issues.
Many thanks in advance.