Debunk the Myth of the Emergency Department - Research Paper Example

Debunk the Myth of the Emergency Department Debunk the Myth of the Emergency Department Research question Are the Majority of Medicaid Visits for Serious Symptoms or Non-Emergency Use? Research hypothesis Null hypothesis (H0) of the research that we were testing was: Majority of Medicaid patients are improperly seeking emergency care. It was tested against alternative hypothesis (H1) that the majority of Medicaid patients are properly seeking emergency care. The hypothesis was tried at 0.05 levels of significance. Participants In our research, we took the general population which is likely to use the emergency department to be our universe. Further, we subdivided it into categories/ groups to find out people known to use this service frequently. We grouped it in accordance with their age, gender, and financial background. We used age to categorize into some sub-age groups of the majorities using the department. In addition, gender was considered as a method of grouping for its help in determining what type of sex often uses the services. Financial background also was used to help us understand the reason for the improper use of emergency services. Finally, we focused on the population that uses the health insurance coverage by Medicaid, as they seemed to have added to the burden of those receiving emergency health facilities. Through this population (universe) we were able to draw some true representation samples by the method of stratified sampling techniques. It helped us to identify more realistic samples. Mandel, (2012) agrees that stratified random sampling is an appropriate methodology for one to come up with proportionate results which will lead to meaningful comparison between the sub-groups/ strata in the population. Furthermore, this techniques measures central tendency of the sample population are closer to population. Hence, it is unbiased. Analysis of the research In the study, we used various descriptive statistics to analyze the data that was collected. This step helped us to see the trend/ patterns in which data were emerging. However, the descriptive statistic never allowed us to make a conclusion beyond the data that we analyzed about, which entailed the “Debunk the myth of the emergency department”. We used them as tools to describe our data. They were so helpful for we were able to visualize a lot of raw data onto more represented way. The descriptive statistics were performed on the sample groups to obtain a clear understanding of the population. Measures of central tendencies (medium, mode, percentile and mean) and measures of dispersion standard deviation were computed. The results showed the highest populating that visited the ED lies at the age bracket of 45-64, with the addition, women visited ED more as compared to men. In addition bivariate, Pearson’s correlation analysis was performed to establish the strength and direction of relationships between the groups (Mandel, 2012). In the sample data, that was collected on those who visited emergency department in America in one year, we found that in over 10 million people visits emergency departments annually, and the proportion of all the people that seek the emergency services accounted for about 4 percent of those spending in Medicaid. There was also, categorical reasons for people to seek this emergency care, which ranged from shortages of primary care and physicians not accepting the Medicaid cases that attract low reimbursement. Statistically, this was the highest cases. The data below was as per changes in an emergency department (ED) visits rate of 2006 and 2011 with their percentage changes (American College of Emergency Physicians). Characteristic Rate per 100,000 population Percent change 2006 2011 Total rate for all EDs visits 40,200 42,100 4.5 Age group, years Read More